Live Auction 13322Old Master Drawings and British Drawings and Watercolours
Hugh Douglas Hamilton, R.H.A. (Dublin 1739-1808)
Lot 177

Hugh Douglas Hamilton, R.H.A. (Dublin 1739-1808)

Portrait of Christopher Norton (circa 1740-1799), small half-length, in a brown coat and blue waistcoat

Closed7 December 2016

Price Realised

GBP 11,250

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Hugh Douglas Hamilton, R.H.A. (Dublin 1739-1808)
Portrait of Christopher Norton (circa 1740-1799), small half-length, in a brown coat and blue waistcoat
pastel
10 ½ x 9 in. (26.6 x 22.8 cm.), oval
in the original carved and gilded frame

James Byres of Tonley; recorded in the 1790 inventory of Byres' house, Strada Paolina, Rome, as in the writing room.
Patrick Byres of Tonley, and by descent.
Christie's, London, 22 November 1977, lot 108.
with Colnaghi, London.

Specialist note

Christopher Norton (circa 1740-1799) was the business partner of the antiquary and cicerone James Byres (1734-1817). Resident in Rome, Byres was hugely influential in the expatriate community there and in determining the course of Grand Tour patronage. This portrait and its pendant of Byres (Aberdeen Art Gallery), alongside which it hung in the writing room at Strada Paolina, must be among the first pastels executed by Hamilton in Rome, and it is likely that Byres introduced the artist to some of his other English sitters in Italy.

The two were also depicted in a group portrait with Byres' parents and sister by Franciszek Smuglewicz (1745-1807) (Scottish National Portrait Gallery).