Portrait Of Major Gen. Hutchinson By E.J. Harding

An accomplished watercolour portrait of Major General Hutchinson by E. J. Harding, mounted with inscription and in a walnut veneered frame.

Charles Scrope Hutchinson was 24 and a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers when this portrait was painted. He was born in 1827 and enlisted as a 16 year old 2nd Lieutenant in December 1843. He rose to Lieutenant after 2 1/2 years and made Captain on the 17th December 1854. Brevet Major followed in January 1867 and Lieutenant Colonel not long after in July of the same year. In 1874 he was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He retired as a Major General on the 30th December 1876 on full pay. He had a 33 year career in the army and continued in a job he had started whilst in uniform an Inspector of Railways at the Board of Trade in Whitehall. He was the Chief Inspector of Railways from 1892 to 1895 and was awarded Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1890. He died in 1912.

The painting is signed and dated 'E. J. Harding 1851' to the bottom left corner. Edward J. Harding was an Irish portrait painter born in 1804. He worked mostly in Cork and was highly thought of as a miniaturist. He exhibited pictures in the Cork Exhibition of 1852, a year after this picture was painted. The quality of the painting of Hutchinson's face to this picture is very good, which is perhaps no less than you expect from a recognised miniaturist. The mount gives the legend 'Major General C.S. Hutchinson, C.B. , R.E. E. J. Harding, 1851.' and was obviously added sometime after his retirement from the army. Dated 1851.

Frame size is given.