Portrait of Miss Ormsby, later Mrs Homan

Portrait of Miss Ormsby, later Mrs Homan, painted in 1879, comes from Forbes's student years — before his Breton period and before the founding of the Newlyn School — and represents the conventional portrait training that underpinned his later naturalist achievements. The National Gallery of Ireland's possession of the work situates it within Irish cultural history: Miss Ormsby was presumably an Irish subject, and the commission reflects the social networks in which the young Forbes moved before his permanent relocation to Cornwall. Early portraits by painters who later became known for other subjects are valuable as documents of training and development, showing the academic foundations beneath the mature plein-air manner.

The 1879 date places this in Forbes's conventional academic phase, before Bastien-Lepage's influence reshaped his technique. The portrait would employ the blended tonal approach of traditional academic training — careful, smooth modelling of the face, attention to the sitter's fashionable dress.