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Nathaniel Hone RA (24 April 1718 – 14 August 1784) was an Irish-born portrait and miniature painter, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. The son of a Dublin-based Dutch merchant, Hone moved to England as a young man and, after marrying Molly Earle – daughter of the Duke of Argyll – in 1742, eventually settled in London, by which time he had acquired a reputation as a portrait-painter. While his paintings were popular, his reputation was particularly enhanced by his skill at producing miniatures and enamels. He interrupted his time in London by spending two years (1750–1752) studying in Italy. As a portrait painter, several of his works are now held at the National Portrait Gallery in London. His sitters included magistrate Sir John Fielding and Methodist preacher John Wesley, and General Richard Wilford and Sir Levett Hanson in a double portrait. He often used his son John Camillus Hone (1745–1836) in some of his works, including his unique portrait of “The Spartan Boy”, painted in 1774. He courted controversy in 1775 when his satirical picture The Conjurer (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) was seen to attack the fashion for Italian Renaissance art and to ridicule Sir Joshua Reynolds, leading the Royal Academy to reject the painting. It also originally included a nude caricature of fellow Academician Angelica Kauffman in the top left corner, which was painted out by Hone after Kauffman complained to the academy. The combination of a little girl and an old man has also been seen as symbolic of Kauffman and Reynolds’s closeness, age difference, and rumoured affair. To show that his reputation was undamaged, Hone organised a one-man retrospective in London, the first such solo exhibition of an artist’s work.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hone_the_Elder

William Baillie (1723–1810) often known as “Captain William Baillie” was an Irish printmaker. Baillie was born at Kilbride, County Carlow, on 5 June 1723. He was educated at Dr. Sheridan’s school in Dublin, and at about the age of eighteen his father sent him to London to study law. However he decided to follow the example of a younger brother and join the army. After some opposition from his father, he was allowed to accept of a commission offered to him by Lord Archibald Hamilton, in the 13th Regiment of Foot. He joined the regiment as the senior ensign before the battle of Lafeldt, where he carried the colours. He served with this regiment for many years, and was at the battle of Culloden, and at several engagements in Germany. He then became an officer in the 51st Regiment and was with them as captain of the grenadiers and paymaster at the battle of Minden. He then spent some time in the 17th Light Dragoons before selling his commission. He made his first etchings while still in the army. The earliest dated ones, from 1753, depict soldiers, one a named member of his regiment. He was largely self-taught as an artist, though he had some lessons from his fellow Irishman, Nathaniel Hone. After leaving the army in 1761, Baillie devoted his life to the arts, although from 1773–95 he also held the post of Commissioner of Stamps. He made prints in various styles, first exhibiting his work with the Society of Artists in 1762, but his most notable productions were those in the style of, or directly copied from, the etchings of Rembrandt. To imitate Rembrandt’s effects of chiaoscuro, he used mezzotint, a technique not employed by the Dutch artist. He also obtained the badly worn original plate of Rembrandt’s “Hundred Guilder Print” and reworked it. When a limited number of impressions had been made, the plate was cut into four pieces, and impressions taken from the individual sections.  His main business however was as a picture dealer, acting as agent for the Earl of Bute and Lord Liverpool among others. His works were published in two folio volumes by John Boydell, in 1792,under the title of A Series of 225 Prints and Etchings after Rembrandt, Teniers, G. Dou, Poussin, and others. He died at Paddington, London, on 22 December 1810.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Baillie_(engraver)