Robert Hunter (painter)
Robert Hunter was an Irish painter who specialised in portrait painting. He studied under the elder Pope, and had a considerable practice in Dublin in the middle of the eighteenth century. He modelled his tone of colouring on the painting of old masters.
Life
Robert Hunter was born in Ulster in. By 1748 he was creating portraits. His early work tended to be three-quarter portraits with a landscape as a background. His daughter, Marianne, was also an artist. She married the portrait painter John Trotter. His portraits were excellent likenesses, if not of the first rank in painting. He had an extensive practice until the arrival of Robert Home in 1783, who attracted Hunter's prime business. Hunter contributed frequently to the Dublin Society of Artists after helping to found it. Many of his portraits were engraved in mezzotint, including John, lord Naas, Simon, earl Harcourt, now at Nuneham Park, Dr. Samuel Madden, John Wesley, painted in Dublin, and others.The entry from A Dictionary of Irish Artists reads: