To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com



This watercolour on ivory is by miniaturist Andrew Plimer. The sitter depicted here can be identified as Francis Bushell Reaston, Barrister at Law and Master of the Bench of the Honorable Society of the Middle Temple. Reaston married Mary, only daughter and heiress of Samuel Jackson of London, who changed his name in 1757 to Doddington (sic) on inheriting the Horsington Estate from his uncle George Dodington, and who was High Sheriff of Somerset in 1762. Mary died 30th April 1812, but there were no children. His Will is held at The National Archives, Kew and his death is recorded August 1827.

Reaston is here depicted in a brown coat with white cravat. His hair, rendered in thin strokes of paint, is exemplary of Plimer’s working method and the distinguishable cross-hatching above the head of the sitter is also recognisable as a distinctive technique of Plimer’s. Plimer’s earlier works, of the years between 1785 and 1789, are often signed and dated on the front A P, as is seen in the present miniature.

Plimer received his artistic training at the hands of Richard Cosway, who may also have funded Plimer’s lessons in draughtsmanship with an engraver, John Hall of Soho. Plimer established himself as an independent artist in 1785, and in the following year began to exhibit at the Royal Academy. He married Joanna Louisa Knight (1774-1861) in 1801, with whom he had four daughters and a son who died in infancy. Plimer gave lessons to his sister-in-law, Mary Ann Knight (1776-1851), who became a successful artist in her own right. The most successful and active years of his career were between 1787 and 1810, when he lived in Golden Square, Soho.

He left London later that decade, however, travelling to Exeter, where he lived until 1818 when he returned to London. Work, however, did not come easily to Plimer in this period and he left the city again in the 1820s to travel the country, having exhibited his last works at the Royal Academy in 1819. Moving through Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Wales and Scotland, Plimer continued to work but increasingly struggled to find clients. These difficulties were exacerbated by his waning eyesight which meant that around 1830 he was finally forced to give up work for good. When he died in Brighton in 1837, his obituaries remembered him as a great artist, but of the distant past.