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Patrick Miller

1 of 4 portraits of Patrick Miller

Patrick Miller, by Sir George Chalmers, circa 1770 -NPG 2009 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Patrick Miller

attributed to Sir George Chalmers
circa 1770
29 1/2 in. x 24 1/2 in. (749 mm x 622 mm)
NPG 2009

This portraitback to top

The identity rests on the alleged provenance; Miller is shown as banker rather than inventor, considerably younger than in his other surving portraits. The attribution to Chalmers (who was active in Edinburgh between 1760 and 1776) seems first to have been made in 1923, when the portrait came to the NPG (having previously been called Nasmyth [1]).
NPG 2009 was possibly the portrait used as a source for the mid-19th century group portrait of Men of Science living in 1807-08 (see NPG 1075), in which case it was, c.1860, 'in the Portrait Gallery of the South Kensington Museum' - and doubtless the portrait which, according to the DNB, had been lent by a Miss Gregan of Dumfries to the Patent Office in 1859-60.

Footnotesback to top

1) Letters from Mary Livingston of 15 October and 5 December 1923 (NPG archive).

Physical descriptionback to top

Grey eyes, powdered white hair, wearing a brown coat with gold trim (oak leaves and berries motif), white lace cuffs and neckcloth; brown background.

Provenanceback to top

[Sale of the Dalswinton estate c.1821;1 Miss Gregan by 1859] Miss Murphie, Cresswell House, Dumfries, by 1896; her niece, Mary G. Livingstone, from whom purchased 1923.

1 According to the letters from Mary Livingston of 15 October and 5 December 1923 (NPG archive).

Exhibitionsback to top

Burns, Glasgow, 1896 (117) lent Miss Murphie.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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