He is known for his high quality Portrait miniatures and is considered one of the best draughtsmen in late seventeenth-century Britain. He worked mainly in plumbago, pencil and sepia, but also painted portraits in oil.[1]
Biography
His earliest known works are copies of oils formerly in the collection of Charles I by Giovanni Cariani and Titian dating from 1667. Paton also copied works of older contemporary Samuel Cooper including the famous 1665 large rectangular miniature of Charles II. One copy, signed and dated 1668, is at Ham House, the other, a year later, is in the collection of the duke of Buccleuch.[2][3]
Paton is known to have been in Italy in the 1670s and 1680s with The Hon. William Tollemache (1662–1694), the youngest son of his patron, Murray's daughter; Elizabeth Maitland, Duchess of Lauderdale, on his Grand Tour.[1][2] Paton's self-portrait, a miniature dated 1683, is held in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.[2]
Following the tour, Paton appears to have worked mainly in Edinburgh. Perhaps Paton's most notable work, The Yester Lords dates from this period, now thought to depict John Maitland, and his younger brother Charles (c.1620–1691) and not, as previously believed, members of the Hay family, who lived at Yester House.[2]
Three groups, each containing five small medallion portraits (chiefly of members of the Hamilton family), which were at Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire, bear his name and the date 1693.[4]
In 1698 he received £2 18s. for a picture for James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, and £5 16s. from the same source the year after.[2]
