Henry Winston Barron, M.P.

Henry Winston Barron was another of the Irish MPs whom Hayter sketched for the House of Commons project, and like the Fitzstephen French portrait, this study found its way to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Barron represented Waterford and was part of the O’Connellite movement that made Irish Catholic representation in Parliament a political reality after the Reform Act. George Hayter was the preeminent British history and portrait painter of the early Victorian era, appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1841.

Hayter’s paired Irish portrait studies share a consistent format and execution, suggesting they were produced in rapid succession during the same sitting campaign.