Additional Images

Provenance:

W. Scott & Sons, Montreal, QC;
Galerie Valentin, Montreal, QC;
Estate of Jean-Pierre Valentin, Montreal, QC

Literature:

Harry Piers, Robert Field - Portrait Painter in Oil, Miniatures, Water-Colours and Engraver, Frederick Fairchild Sherman, New York, 1927.

Note:

According to the preeminent historian of early painting in English Canada, J. Russell Harper, Robert Field was born in England and died in Kingston, Jamaica in 1819.

Field was a painter and engraver, studying at the Royal Academy School in London in 1790. He became a skilled mezzotint and stipple engraver in England before 1794. In that year he emigrated to the United States, spending time in Baltimore, then Philadelphia. From 1800-1802, he lived in Washington, then moved to Boston from 1805-1808. During his time in the U.S., Field executed many miniatures and a few portraits in oil of prominent Americans including Martha Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

In 1808, 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, Canada. He served in the 1st Company of Halifax Volunteer Artillery in 1812 and became a member of the Charitable Irish Society of Halifax.

Recognized as one of Canada's leading portrait artists, Field was probably the most professionally-trained painter to settle in Canada at the beginning of the 19th century and certainly ranked as Canada's leading portrait painter on the eastern seaboard. Working in the neoclassical portrait style of Henry Raeburn and Gilbert Stuart, his patrons of the over 50 fine portraits Field painted in oil in Canada were of army and naval officers and prominent citizens. He also executed portraits for the Rockingham Club of Halifax, several of which were engraved.

Robert Field's portraits painted during the Halifax stage of his career stand as a striking illustration of patronage of the arts in colonial Canada.