The miniature portrait of Sir John Macpherson shown on the right is painted on ivory and mounted in gold. It was presented to the Museum in 1954 by W. A. Robertson, Esq., C.M.G., and the Misses Robertson."Sir John is depicted as blue-eyed and fresh coloured, with a very open countenance and regular features. He is wearing a gay silk coat of bright pink and a white cravat, and gives the impression of a cheerful personality with a strong sense of humour, and one who did not let the cares of office weigh too heavily on his spirit. As can be seen, he is wearing his own hair, highly powdered in the fashion of the day, showing as white, but, from the sample plaited and enclosed under glass in the back of the miniature, its natural colour was fair to gold. As we shall see he must have been forty years old when it was painted.
"The following extract is given by permission and courtesy of the Royal Society of Arts. 'In 1785 two of the best known miniaturists arrived [in India] simultaneously -- Ozias Humphrey at Calcutta and John Smart at Madras. The former found a patron in the Governor-General, Sir John Macpherson, who not only commissioned a number of miniatures, but gave the artist a strong recommendation to the Nawab Wazir at Lucknow. There, however, Humphrey found not only was Zoffany firmly established, but there was likely to be further competition from Charles Smith, newly arrived and likewise furnished with an introduction from Macpherson.
"'The Nawab, bored with the whole business, compromised by granting simultaneous sittings to both artists. Humphrey soon tired of Lucknow and went back to Calcutta, where, with astounding ingratitude, he commenced a legal action against Macpherson for 42,000 rupees, which he alleged he had lost by going up country.
"'The case ended in a verdict for Macpherson, who magnanimously forbore to claim the costs awarded against Humphrey. . . . On the whole Humphrey must have done fairly well, for he had painted many miniatures for which he charged from 500 to 1,000 rupees apiece.'
"In view of the considerable differences of opinion expressed on the character of our clansman, many of them coloured by the political views of the writers, which could not have been otherwise in the tangle of eighteenth-century politics, the above is an interesting sidelight and one which tends to confirm the impression given by the portrait."