Exceptional 18th Century (1785) Miniature Portrait Painting by Diana Hill (1760-1844)

Exceptional 18th Century (1785) Miniature Portrait Painting by Diana Hill (1760-1844) On offer is this exceptional original portrait miniature on ivorine of the Prominent Merchant Theophilus Blanckenhagen by Diana Hill (nee Dietz) 1760-1844. Painted in 1785 and depicts Theophilus Blanckenhagen in a seated position with his hand tucked inside his jacket. Indeed, the work is both signed 'Hill' and dated '1785'. The inscription on the back of this piece has allowed us to identify this wonderful miniature as a portrait of the merchant Theophilus Christian Blanckenhagen (1736-1814), of Russian and German descent, but a naturalised British citizen from 1771 onwards. He would have been 49 when this picture was painted. The Blanckenhagen family were a prominent merchant dynasty throughout much of Europe and Theophilus was very successful indeed. Despite two bankruptcies caused largely by his trading partners over-stretching themselves, it would seem he was able to rebuild his reputation and his trading empire. According to Professor Robert Lee in his Commerce and Culture: Nineteenth-Century Business Elites, Blanckenhagen and Wilson, Theophilus' first major trading firm in England, enjoyed a meteoric rise in importance. “Within less than a decade, Blanckenhagen and Wilson had risen to become one of the leading merchant houses in the city of London and around 1778 John Christian Schreiber of Leipzig became a business partner”. By 1793, Blanckenhagen's firm was described as one of the “giant houses of London”. Blanckenhagen's trading interests put him in contact with the East India Company and his son was based in India for a period. When in 1785 the artist of this portrait, Diana Hill, asked the East India Company for permission to go to India and work as a portraitist there, Blanckenhagen was one of her sponsors. Perhaps this lovely portrait was painted as a token of gratitude for his help in allowing the artist to move on to the next stage of her career. Diana Hill:- Diana Dietz was born in c.1760 the daughter of a London jeweller. She trained as a miniaturist under Jeremiah Meyer-court miniaturist to George Iii and Queen Charlotte. She first exhibited her miniatures at the Society of Artists in 1775 and was awarded a prize by the Society of Arts for her skilful flower paintings in the same year. She also exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1777 and 1780. After her marriage in 1781 to Haydock Hill, she exhibited as an honorary exhibitor at the Ra in 1785 as “Mrs Hill”. Her husband died later that year and it was as a result of this that she chose to leave the country and seek to continue her career in India, arriving there in 1786. Diana remarried in India but her second husband died in 1817. She eventually returned to England and died in Twickenham in 1844, having not painted professionally for some time before that. The miniaturist Ozias Humphrey, also based in India at the time, noted her arrival in 1786 as it meant that he would face increased competition-apparently acknowledging the high standard of her work. One of her most famous portraits was of General Cornwallis and this piece is in the Mount Vernon Collection in the USA. Attributes:- Oil on ivorine Dated: 1785 Inscription verso identifies the sitter *Certificate of Authenticity (COA) will be provided by artsonline with this piece*