Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1739-1808

This recently discovered pastel by Hugh Douglas Hamilton shows a woman with her child, teasing him as he prepares to reach up for the Neopolitan biscuit she holds.  Beside her are more biscuits, at her feet a basket of washing.  This charming and intimate portrait in a room at Posillipo with a view of Naples and Vesuvius beyond.

The woman has been thought to be Emma Hamilton but comparison with Hamilton's portrait of her as the Three Muses (Hamilton Collection, Lennoxlove), and other portraits of her by Romney, Lawrence, Reynolds and Vigee-Le Brun does not support this.  Indeed, when last on the open market in a sale at Christies on 3rd July 1964 as by Gavin Hamilton, she was described as an unidentified lady.  Among Hamilton's identified sitters, there is a passing resemblance to Charlotte, Duchess of Albany, Anne Countess Cowper, who he painted in Florence, and the Countess of Erne, daughter of 4th Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry.  There is also a similarity to Isabelle Teotochi-Marini, the Grafin von Schonfield and Mme Charlotte Ritt, all painted by Vigee-Le Brun and Fortunate Sulgher Fantastici and Miss Ellis Cornelia Knight painted by Angelica Kauffman.  However, to date, she remains unidentified.

The pastel is clearly the work of Hugh Douglas Hamilton, who at the height of his success in Dublin, travelled with his daughter to Italy in 1778 and lived there for twelve years, mostly in Rome and Florence, where he drew many sitters including English and Irish Grand Tourists, members of the exiled Stuarts like Prince Charles Edward, Cardinal York and Louise de Stolberg , fellow artists like Antonio Canova and Henry Tresham, and when in Naples, Sir William and Lady Hamilton.  He and his daughter became close friends with the Flaxmans and it was Flaxman who reportedly persuaded Hamilton to take up painting more portraits in oil.  Hamilton may have visited Naples on several occasions in the 1780's, but he was certainly there in 1788 when he visited Pompeii, and Conte de Rezzonico recorded his presence with him when they saw Emma Hamilton displaying her Attitudes on an occasion between 1789 and June 1790.  The present work appears to date from the late 1780's.

We are grateful to Professor Fintan Cullen, Dr Kim Sloan and John Ingamells for their assistance in the cataloguing of this work