Robert Field

His most famous works are two groups of miniatures of George Washington, commissioned by his wife Martha Washington. (Field's miniatures of both are in the Yale University Art Gallery permanent collection.)

He received his early training at Royal Academy schools in London in 1790. In 1794, he moved to the United States, first living in Baltimore before taking up residence in Philadelphia, the nation's first capital. In Philadelphia, Field immediately joined a group of artists led by Charles Willson Peale in establishing the Columbianum, or American Academy of the Fine Arts, which was eventually superseded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1805. Field spent 14 years in the U.S., working as a miniature painter in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Boston. During this period, he produced miniatures of George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and a wide range of people prominent in the social, economic, and political life of American society. According to historian Harry Piers, Field was one of the four most highly sought American miniaturists in his time. Martha Washington herself commissioned Field in 1800 to paint a group of miniature as mementoes for friends and family, to commemorate the revered General and President on the first anniversary of his death. Two groups of miniatures of George Washington were produced by Field at Martha's request in late 1800, the first group showing him in civilian dress, the second as general in full uniform.

When tensions between America and England started to rise in the lead up to the War of 1812, Field remained a loyalist and moved from Boston to Halifax, Nova Scotia (1808). He served in the 1st Company of Halifax Volunteer Artillery in 1812. He became a member of the Charitable Irish Society of Halifax. He continued to produce miniatures, but he also painted oil portraits of government officials, military officers, merchants, and assorted members of the Halifax "gentility"; among his subjects were Bishop Charles Inglis, former lieutenant governor Sir John Wentworth, Sir George Prevost, Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo William Parry Wallis, and Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, vice-admiral in the Royal Navy (whose portrait was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition in London in 1810). It was with Wentworth's patronage that Field set up his portrait studio, located in a bookshop. In his only eight years in the city, he painted perhaps as many as 150 full-scale and miniature portraits.

In 1816 he moved to Jamaica, settling first in Montego Bay and then in Kingston. He died on 9 August 1819, apparently of yellow fever, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the old "West Ground" cemetery, now called the Strangers' Burial Ground, near the Kingston parish church.

• Illustration — American President Thomas Jefferson • Illustration — Richard John Uniacke (1811) • Illustration — Charles Inglis (National Portrait Gallery, London) • Illustration — Sir John Coape Sherbrooke (The Halifax Club) • Illustration — Provo Wallis, (National Gallery of Canada) • Illustration — Sir George Prevost, The Halifax Club, Nova Scotia • Illustration — Matthew Richardson (merchant), (Government House (Nova Scotia) • Illustration — Andrew Belcher, Government House (Nova Scotia) • Illustration — Sir Alexander Croke (National Gallery of Canada) • Illustration — Rev Archibald Gray • Illustration — Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane • Illustration — Anna Gray (1797), on ivory by Robert Field found at the Frick Art Research Library Photoarchive