ANDREW PLIMER

Andrew Plimer was the older, and slightly more accomplished, of the Plimer Brothers, both miniature painters working in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The pair left home at a young age and were both taught by Richard Cosway, to whom Andrew was a manservant. Andrew’s client base was widespread, and he travelled across the country to take sittings. His works are well-represented within public collections. The present work is a fine example of his later output, from around the 1790s onwards. 
It has not been possible to identify the Mr Bruntop painted here by Plimer. When sold in 1999, the sitter of this miniature was not identified. This indicates that the backing paper must have only been revealed in the early 20th century. There are no records of a Bruntop family from the period, and this may be a mistranscription of the name written on the backing card. Brunton would be a more common and likely surname, though without access to the reverse of the miniature, this identity cannot be confirmed.