Lot 139: MICHAEL FORD D.1765

MATERIAL/MEDIUM
oil on canvas

three-quarter length, seated, wearing the robes of the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland

124 by 99 cm., 48 3/4 by 39 in.

Walter George Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists, 1969, Vol. I, p.370

The sitter was Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. His reputation within his profession and in Parliament was high, and throughout his distinguished career Singleton amassed a large collection of law books in manuscript, which now comprise the Singleton Collection at the University of Columbia Law School in New York.

Michael Ford was the son of the Rev. Roger Ford, Archdeacon of Derry. He was the pupil of the Dublin portrait painter, Michael Mitchell, and had an active practice as both a painter and an engraver. The present picture is one of only two recorded pictures by Ford, the other being a portrait of Henry Boyle, painted in 1748.