Biografie von Robert FIELD (1769-1819)

Birth place: England (possibly Gloucestershire)

Death place: Kingston, Jamaica

Addresses: NYC; Phila.; Wash., DC; Baltimore; Boston; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Kingston, Jamaica

Profession: Miniature and portrait painter, engraver

Studied: engraving, at the Royal Academy, London, the early 1790s

Work: NPG, Wash., DC; Worcester Art Mus.

Comments: Emigrated to America in 1794, spending a brief time in NYC, afterwards working in several American cities, including Philadelphia (1795-1800), Wash., DC (1800-02), Baltimore, MD (1802-04), and Boston (1805-08). He was a leading miniature painter, while also painting in oils and doing good engraving work. Field moved to Halifax (NS) in 1808 and there had a successful career as portrait and miniature painter until l816. In that year he moved to the island of Jamaica and three years later he died of yellow fever in Kingston.

Sources: G&W; Piers, Robert Field; Bolton, Crayon Draftsmen; Wehle and Bolton; Prime, II, 9; Sherman, Two Newly Discovered Watercolor Portraits by Robert Field." More recently, see McMahan, Artists of Washington, D.C.; Strickler, American Portrait Miniatures, 58-59"