(1726 - c.1779), miniaturist and enamellist, s. of Donald Macpherson.
1726 - 79
Donald Macpherson visited Florence in 1717 as a servant (a running footman) to the 2nd Duke of Gordon. There he remained and fathered a son, Giuseppe, who was born on 19 March 1726 and became a miniature painter of some repute.1
Macpherson is reputed to have studied with Pompeo Batoni in Rome. In the 1750s he worked in London, Paris, Germany and Milan painting miniature portraits and copying old masters. In 1742 he was elected novizio of the Florentine Academy (and in 1775 consigliere).2 By 1764 he had a studio in Florence where Martin 'saw sevl Copys in Miniature taken from the Painter's Portraits in the Gallery'. Macpherson was then 'employed to do them all for Lord Cowper and has already finished a good number of them ... he has Ten Sequins' each.3 Sixty of them were shown at SS Annunziata in 1767,4 and on 20 February 1773 Cowper wrote to George III offering him 'half the collection' and a promise of 'the other half, as soon as finished'.5 This gift was accepted by the King. A year later James Bruce delivered a further 'box of pictures' and on 1 November 1777 Cowper reports that 'the collection of miniatures of the Florentine Gallery is finished for your Majesty, and I shall have the honour of presenting them myself to your Majesty soon'.6 Presumably he did this when he visited London briefly in 1786.
In May 1778 Macpherson submitted his own self-portrait to the Uffizi and to mark the presentation the Grand Duke presented him with a gold medal. There are few other identified works except for a portrait of Zoffany with a group of friends (Florence, Uffizi) and a portrait of Lord Cowper (private collection) both of which date from the 1770s.
In 1798 Pryse Lockhart Gordon met Macpherson's daughter in Florence [Gordon called MacPherson 'Gregory' or 'M'Gregor', a descendant of Donaldo Gregorio a running footman in the Duke of Gordon's suite] and bought from her for fifty crowns a collection of her father's works, drawings and enamels.7
1. Gordon, Personal Memoirs, 1:441, 454. See J. Fleming, Connoisseur, 134[1959]:166 - 7; M. Webster, CL, 8 Jun. 1972, 1445 - 6. 2. Borroni 1985, 23. 3. Martin jnl.mss (17 Nov. 1764). 4. Borroni 1974b, 99. 5. J. Fortescue, Corr.of George III, 2:444. 6. Ibid., 492. R. Walker, 18th and Early 19th cent.Miniature Collection of H.M.The Queen, [1992], 232 - 48. 7. Gordon, Personal Memoirs, 1:441 - 4, 454.
H.G. B.