Horatio Nelson, Miniature Painter
(fl. 1836-1849)
Miniature Painter
From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913
Entered the Dublin Society's School in 1834, and in 1836 established himself as a miniature painter at No. 16 College Green, and contributed to the exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy, where he was a constant exhibitor, mostly of miniatures, until 1845. For many years he was at 95 Grafton Street, at the corner of Wicklow Street, practising as a miniature painter, and was the first to introduce the daguerreotype process into Dublin. In an advertisement by him in 1844 he announces himself as "the only daguerreotype artist in Dublin," and calls attention to a "new method, portraits taken in all the colours of nature. The process practised by Mr. Nelson is exclusively his only invention. Mr. Nelson continues to take miniatures on ivory, portraits in oil, etc." ("Saunders' Newsletter," July, 1844). In the following year he again calls attention to his "coloured daguerreotypes," and says that he was the first to produce them. Some woodcuts, views after his drawings, appeared in the "Dublin Penny Journal." He appears to have died in 1849.