Horace Hone (British, 1756–1825)

b. 1756 — d. 1825

Horace Hone was a miniature painter, enameler, and engraver trained at the Royal Academy Schools in London and by his father, the Irish painter Nathaniel Hone (1718–1784). Horace worked in Dublin from 1782 until moving back to London around 1804, after the union of England and Ireland brought about the emigration of much of his clientele. He was appointed miniature painter to the Prince of Wales (the future king George IV) in 1795 and painted elite members of society, including the politician Charles James Fox and the theater doyenne Sarah Siddons. Hone was a friend of the famous diarist Joseph Farington, who wrote in 1795 of Hone’s receiving 12 guineas for painting a portrait for which the sitter’s wife was going to spend £300 on the setting. This payment suggests that in the 1790s, when his practice was thriving, Hone’s rates were similar to those charged by his successful contemporaries George Engleheart (1752– 1829) and Richard Cosway (1742–1821).3 By the 1810s, however, Hone was suffering from mental illness, his practice was in decline, and he was sufficiently financially desperate to appeal to the Royal Academy for charity on several occasions between 1814 and 1821. Hone was appointed an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1779 and exhibited at twenty-nine of its annual exhibitions between 1772 and 1822. The quality of his miniatures varies widely, but his best works are vibrantly colored and minutely worked, suggesting psychological depth and intimacy without being cloying. His work in enamel is rare but often regarded as superior to his portraits in watercolor on ivory. Indeed, the enamels less often fell victim to the redundancy and haste of execution evidenced in many of the ivories. Hone is known especially for his elegant portraits of women, who were frequently placed against a golden olive brown background and exhibit the artist’s distinctive dark eyes, rosy cheeks, and painting of individual eyelashes. The Cleveland Museum of Art possesses two portraits on ivory by Hone, each dating from the mid-1780s, when he was a young artist enjoying success in Dublin. Both works depict fashionably dressed women wearing large portrait miniatures.