CHARLES ROBERTSON (IRISH 1760-1821) Portrait Miniature of Walter Robertson, brother of the artist, wearing a brown coat, white waistcoat and tied stock powered hair en queue Watercolour on ivory Gilt-metal frame, the reverse glazed to reveal woven blonde hair Oval, 45 mm (2 in) high Exhibited: Comerford Collection at the Irish Architectural Archives, Dublin, 2009 Literature: Paul Caffrey, John Comerford and the Portrait Miniature in Ireland c 1620-1850, Kilkenny Archaeological Society, 1999, p. 27, Number 38, illustrated in colour p. 35; The Comerford Collection: Portrait Miniatures, (privately published, Dublin, 2009) pp 8, 34 (# 122) Walter studied at the Dublin Society School of Figure Drawing which he entered in 1765. He established himself as a miniaturist in Dublin between 1768-1784 and was in London between 1784 and 1792. As a friend of the American painter Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) he visited America in 1793. Stuart and Robertson took sittings together for patrons eager for a full-scale oil portrait, from Stuart, and a matching miniature from Robertson. The following year he was commissioned to paint a miniature of George Washington which was engraved several times. In 1795 he went to India where he died in 1802. There is a slightly larger miniature of Walter by Charles in the National Gallery of Ireland.