Ramage, John (1748–24 October 1802), miniature painter and goldsmith, was born probably in Dublin, Ireland. Little is known about his early life, including the identities of his parents. It is believed that he entered the Dublin School of Art in 1763. He married Elizabeth Liddel (d. 1784), the daughter of London merchant Henry Liddel, and they had two children, a boy and a girl, before he emigrated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, at least by 1772, leaving his family in London. No miniatures from this period of residence in Halifax have been identified. In both Boston and New York Ramage received abundant patronage from elite sitters who paid as much for an inch-high miniature by him as for a small oil painting by one of his contemporaries. Ramage was regarded as one of the premier miniature artists of his day; in the late 1780s and early 1790s he dominated the New York market for these small, expensive, and private portraits....
