Hugh Douglas Hamilton

1740 – 1808

Irish painter, active in England and Italy. He trained under Robert West (active 1735-1770) at the Dublin Society's Drawing School, after which he moved to London in the early 1760s. There his skillfully executed pastel portraits attracted a large number of commissions from Irish and English sitters. Among his portraits of the royal family is that of Queen Charlotte (1769; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin); many others are in the British Royal Collection. In 1779 Hamilton travelled to Italy, where he soon attracted an impressive array of British patrons. These included George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (examples at Althorp House, Northants); Lady Hannah Cowper, for whom he made an oval portrait in pastel: Countess Cowper (c. 1787; Firle Place, E. Sussex); and the exiled Stuart royal family, for example the portraits in oil of Charles Edward Stuart (c. 1785; Central Museum and Art Gallery, Dundee; National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh). In Italy his style became more rigorously Neo-Classical; his subject matter extended to history painting as well as portraiture and he began to experiment more frequently in oil paint. However, he continued to work in pastel producing handsome portraits of the 4th Earl of Guilford (National Gallery of Art, Washington), Jonas Langford Brooke (private collection), and, his most famous work showing Canova in his studio (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). In 1791 Hamilton returned to Dublin, where he died.

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