NATHANIEL HONE THE OLD (Dublin, 1718 - London, 1784).
"Portrait of an Admiral," 1775.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Frame of the early twentieth century.
Measurements: 73 x 60 cm; 86 x 74 x 6 cm (frame).
We are before a praiseworthy portrait of gentleman whose link with the sea is expressly pointed out by the rough sea bottom and furrowed by a small sailboat. The haughty pose and defiant gaze, as well as the elegant blue velvet coat, suggest that he must have been a ship's captain or admiral. The portraitist Nathaniel Hone portrayed English personalities of the highest arcunia of his time. He was endowed with a privileged pulse to capture both the psychology and the chromatic qualities, as can be seen in this half-length portrait. A silk scarf knotted around his neck enhances his aristocratic bearing, while its whiteness tones down the contrast between light and shadow in a painting that advances romantic solutions.
The Irish-born portraitist and miniature painter Nathaniel Hone grew up in Dublin in a Dutch family whose family tree includes several renowned artists. He enjoyed brilliant reception throughout his life. Among his models were magistrate Sir John Fielding, Methodist preacher John Wesley, General Richard Wilford and Sir Levett Hanson. Nathaniel moved to England as a young man and settled in London. In 1760, Nathaniel Hone began exhibiting at the Society of Artists, where he would exhibit regularly until the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, when he became a founding member. Hone quickly gained a reputation as a troublemaker thanks to his work submitted for the 1770 exhibition, Two Gentlemen in Masquerade, which portrayed two of the artist's friends dressed as Capuchin monks, one of them using his crucifix to stir a punch bowl. Hone's next confrontation with the Academy would be one of the greatest art scandals of the 18th century. In 1775 he submitted to the annual exhibition "The Conjurer," a work widely read as a satirical attack on the president of the Royal Academy, Joshua Reynolds. Despite these incidents, Hone would not stop exhibiting works at the Royal Academy until his death in 1784.