Portrait of a boy, probably one the artist's children, half-length, in a green coat and waistcoat, holding a red folio

Nathaniel Hone, who was born at Wood Quay in Dublin, the third son of a merchant, also called Nathaniel, was one of the most talented Irish portrait painters of his generation. Like many of his fellow countrymen, as a young man he moved to England, where the market offered greater possibilities. He married there in 1742 Mary Earle, and they then settled London, only occasionally returning to Ireland afterwards. Hone initially specialised in painting portrait miniatures but gave this up in the 1760s to concentrate on life scale portraiture. He built up a fashionable portrait practice, with a broad clientele from among the upper reaches of society, and was one of two Irish founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, the other being George Barret. Alongside his commercial practice, Hone painted a number of enchanting portraits of his children, of which he seems to have had ten (only five of which survived infancy) and to whom he was devoted, as well as a number of self-portraits, which are among his most compelling works. While the early provenance of this tender portrait of a young boy holding a red folio is unknown it is almost certainly a portrait of one of the artist's children - a likelihood emphasised by the inclusion of the folio. The boy shows a strong resemblance to Hone's son John Camillus Hone and this portrait can be compared to Hone's intimate portrait of John Camillus Hone, known as 'The Piping Boy', signed and dated 1769, in the National Gallery of Art Dublin (for which see N. Figgis and B. Rooney, Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 2001, pp.224-5, no 440). John Camillus Hone was to become an accomplished miniaturist himself.