In the 1780s, Dublin was a thriving metropolis with few portraitists to offer competition to Stuart. He had been recommended by Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint portraits for Charles Manners, fourth Duke of Rutland and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who also intended to develop a national gallery. Rutland's death within a week of Stuart's arrival in Dublin was a terrible blow. Stuart would later dramatize his version of the event, saying he had entered Dublin just as the duke's cortege was leaving.

Rutland's early patronage remained important for Stuart even after his death, for Stuart found his Dublin clients among the Anglo-Irish political elite, from the parvenu John FitzGibbon and the country squire William Barker to the aristocrat William Conyngham and Charles Agar, later archbishop of Ireland. Agar's good word had the effect of making Stuart the choice for ecclesiastical portraiture. Stuart arranged with an engraver to publish mezzotints of his portraits, thus ensuring that his work would become known beyond the confines of Parliament and the Anglican rectories.

Stuart left Dublin in March 1793 just as abruptly as he arrived, leaving unfinished business, half-begun portraits, and disappointed clients. His departure coincided with the upheaval of the religious and social order in Ireland that was threatening all artistic patronage. Rather than struggle with the rise in revolutionary tensions, he devised an ambitious plan to paint George Washington, for he was aware of European interest in portraits of the first president of the United States.


 Print text