Part 26

“Here in Master Buttall is Gainsborough’s first great invention both in matter and manner, almost a challenge to Van Dyck’s reputation, but painted in a scheme of color Van Dyck never thought of, and would probably never have tried if he had. In handling it is Gainsborough’s first link with Watteau in its broken tints and fearless lightness of handling of the drapery, in its fascinating play of light and shade, its delightful silhouette and cast shadows. It is difficult to imagine how the composition could be bettered; the picture, by itself, had no others come from the same brush, would have immortalized the painter.”

Finally, Sir Walter Armstrong agrees, too, with the Stephens theory:

“Those who cling to the old traditions quote the style of _The Blue Boy_ in support of the notion that it could not have been painted before 1779. I confess that, to me, it now seems, after much and close observation, to point the other way. The loaded _impasto_, the ruddy carnations, the tendency to brown and beyond it in the shadows, the preoccupation with force, seem all to belong to about the same period as the group at Knole and to be inconsistent with the feathery lightness, freedom, and gaiety which mark Gainsborough’s work towards the end of his life. The most significant comparison may be made with the National Gallery _Mrs. Siddons_. Here again blue, and a franker blue than that of the Master Buttall, is the dominant note. But the painting is more assured, the handling lighter and more prompt, the shadows more transparent, and the figure, as a whole, truer to its illumination. It would not be fair to dwell too much on the contrast between the flesh painting of _The Blue Boy_ and that of the _Mrs. Siddons_, for I fancy the peculiar white bloom of the latter’s skin is due to the fact that she sat in her paint. But it must not be overlooked that even in the portraits of pretty women, that of _Eliza Linley_ for instance, painted about 1770, there is a fullness of color we do not find ten years later. Taking everything into account, it seems to me that the old tradition of _The Blue Boy_ must be given up, and that the Duke of Westminster’s picture, so far from being an answer to Reynolds, was one of the many things that provoked his dictum, Gainsborough replying, if he took the trouble to reply at all, with the _Mrs. Siddons_ and those other portraits, painted in the last ten years of his life, in which blue, canary yellow, and other cool tints are made the centres of the color scheme.”

Buttall and Gainsborough continued their relations. Buttall was one of the “few friends Gainsborough respected and whom he desired should attend his funeral at Kew. Buttall outlived Gainsborough seventeen years and died in December, 1805, as the _Morning Herald_ notes: “Died, on Friday last, at his house in Oxford Street, Jonathan Buttall, Esq., a gentleman whose amiable manners and good disposition will cause him to be ever regretted by his friends.”

GENERAL PHILIP HONYWOOD.

_Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)._

_Collection of Mr. John Ringling._

When Gainsborough exhibited this portrait in London in 1765 it created quite a stir, as it was a departure from the style of any portrait by that artist; and when it was sent home to _Mark Hall_, the seat of the Honywood family in Essex, a new room had to be built in order to accommodate it, as the canvas measures nearly ten feet square (96¾ × 82¼).

This has the reputation of being the finest equestrian portrait ever painted by Gainsborough. Fulcher writes of it:

“Never was the amenity of landscape more happily displayed. Through a richly wooded scene wherein the sturdy oak and silvery-barked birch are conspicuous, the soldier, mounted on a bay horse, appears to be passing, wearing a scarlet dress which contrasts finely with the mass of surrounding foliage. Nothing can be easier than his attitude, as with one hand he curbs his charger and with the other holds his sword which seems to flash in the sun. The picturesque design of this portrait, its brilliant coloring, its bold yet careful execution, Gainsborough never surpassed. No wonder that George III wished to become the possessor of it and no wonder that Horace Walpole wrote of it in his catalogue ‘very good.’ Of the nine pictures which decorated the walls of _Mark Hall_ grand staircase, three were by Gainsborough and included the remarkable portrait of General Honywood. It is the largest work by that master and has the reputation also of being the finest equestrian portrait ever painted by Gainsborough, competing only with Van Dyck’s _Portrait of Charles I_ in the Prado Gallery, Madrid, with which it has more than once been compared.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. John Ringling_

GENERAL PHILIP HONYWOOD

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

The landscape, it is interesting to say, is a part of the park at _Mark Hall_. General Philip Honywood of _Mark Hall_ came of an old Kentish family deriving its origin from a place called _Honewood_ or _Hunewood_ in the parish of Postling in Kent, where they had held lands since the Norman Conquest. General Philip Honywood was born in 1710 and succeeded his nephew in 1758. He was a General of His Majesty’s forces, Colonel of the Third Royal Dragoon Guards, Governor of the Town and Citadel of Kinston-upon-Hull and was also member of Parliament for thirty-one years for the borough of Appleby in the County of Westmoreland. Philip Honywood was always familiarly called “the General” and he died in 1785.

Until 1878 this portrait remained in possession of the Honywood family at _Mark Hall_.

Sir Walter Armstrong in his _Gainsborough_ writes:

“It represents the General riding across the canvas from left to right. He wears a scarlet uniform and carries his sword, unsheathed, in his right hand; he has no scabbard. The horse, a rich bay, is a little too long. The painter has not taken the precaution to draw him in before commencing the figure, and so the fore-quarters are separated from the hind by rather too much middle-piece. This mistake is still more conspicuous in the _Colonel St. Leger_ at Hampton Court, where a quite unreasonable amount of horse shows behind the figure. Otherwise, the Honywood picture is as successful in design as it is in all other ways. The landscape is one of the finest backgrounds ever painted and reminds one of the backgrounds to some of those equestrian portraits by Velasquez which Gainsborough never saw. It is curious that Reynolds had sent a _General on Horseback_ to the Exhibition of 1761. Many things point to the probability that Gainsborough made an annual visit to London during the exhibition and it is quite likely that the apparition of Sir Joshua’s ‘General’ suggested the treatment of his own.”

The Reynolds referred to above is the portrait of _Lord Ligonier_ now in the National Gallery, London.

THE HARVEST WAGGON.

_Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)._

_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

This picture bears comparison with Gainsborough’s famous _Market Cart_ in the National Gallery, London. Some critics even prefer it. It is painted in oils on canvas (48 × 59 inches) and represents a countryside and a scene very familiar to the painter. The country is rugged with a wheel track winding from the left foreground away into the distance towards the blue hills. On the left, there are massive boulders overgrown with shrubbery and trees with russet foliage overhanging the lane. The rustic dray-cart, laden with laughing country folk, is halted to enable a young girl to clamber up over the wheel and into the arms of a youth who bends forward to help her. The three horses stand placidly while the driver adjusts the collar of the leader. A panting dog capers by the cart and two sheep that have strayed from their flock are seen resting by the boulders. The rock in the foreground is signed with the initials “T. G.”

_The Harvest Waggon_ gains particular interest because the two young girls--one seated in the waggon and one climbing up over the wheel--are Gainsborough’s daughters. The horses, too, are portraits--horses that belonged to John Wiltshire, the chief carrier of Bath, and the cart is one of Wiltshire’s “flying waggons.” In some accounts of John Wiltshire he is represented as an ordinary dray-man, who drove his own carts and made deliveries. This was not the case, however. John Wiltshire was a man of importance in Bath, having built up a large “carrying business” (which we would to-day call express), with a regular service of “flying waggons,” always going back and forth from his warehouses in Broad Street, Bath, to the _White Swan_ at Holborn Bridge, London. Wiltshire was elected Mayor of Bath in 1772 and gave a great entertainment at the Town Hall to the gentry and fashionables, giving thereby “much offense to the people in trade” who were not invited. Some idea of the speed of these “flying waggons” may be had from Gainsborough’s letter to Garrick relative to the delivery of the latter’s portrait:

“The picture is to go to London by the Wiltshire fly-waggon on Wednesday next and I believe will arrive by Saturday morning.”

John Wiltshire, who came of a good old family that had attained the rank of squires, lived in a fine mansion at Shockerwick near Bath, which had belonged to his father. This was quite a place of _rendez-vous_ for the notable personages who visited Bath. “There,” it was said, “Anstey had a beech tree, Gainsborough an elm, and Quin an arm-chair, while Fielding, Allen, and their hospitable host, Wiltshire, enjoyed the shades of its sylvan glades.”

Wiltshire was so devoted to Gainsborough and such an admirer of his paintings that he would never allow him to pay any bills for “carrying.” Yet he delivered all of Gainsborough’s finished pictures. After a time, upon Gainsborough’s insisting, Wiltshire replied: “When you think I have carried to the value of a little painting, I beg you will let me have one, sir; and I shall be more than paid.”

By degrees Wiltshire thus acquired his small, but very choice, collection of Gainsboroughs, which was sold at Shockerwick in 1867.

_The Harvest Waggon_ was one of these; and the way the picture came to be painted was this. On one occasion Gainsborough asked Wiltshire to lend him a horse for a model. The generous Wiltshire saddled and bridled one of his horses and sent it to Gainsborough for a present. Gainsborough painted this horse and made, as Fulcher says, “a remarkably fine study of this animal.” Gainsborough now returned the compliment. He painted _The Harvest Waggon_ and sent it to Wiltshire as a present. Wiltshire was overjoyed, for here was his own waggon; here were his own horses; and here were the artist’s own daughters!

[Illustration:

_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

THE HARVEST WAGGON

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

On giving _The Harvest Waggon_ to Wiltshire, Gainsborough said it _pleased him more than any picture he had ever painted_.

From the Collections of Thomas Gibbons, Esq., Hanover Terrace, Regents Park, of the Rev. Benjamin Gibbons, Hanover Terrace, Regents Park, and of Sir Lionel Phillips, London, _The Harvest Waggon_ passed into the Collection of the late Judge Elbert H. Gary. It attracted great attention at the Gary Sale in New York, April, 1928, when it was sold at the Plaza Hotel for $875,000, the highest figure that any picture has ever reached at auction.

JOHN WALTER TEMPEST.

_George Romney (1734–1802)._

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field._

It would be hard to find in all the range of portraiture, at any time and in any place, a work more charming, true, sincere, natural, and ingratiating than this adorable boy with his beloved horse. You can see at a glance that they love each other.

Everything about the picture is delightful: the coloring, the handsome, sweet, and dreamy boy with his unspeakable grace and gentleness, the fine horse, so contented, and the suave landscape--all make both a portrait and a picture that will live for all time. No changes in fashion can ever destroy its beauty and its appeal. Moreover, Romney has succeeded in suggesting here a young boy’s dreams and the friendship between a boy and a horse. The relation between the two, as they enjoy a pause in their jaunt through the woodland, is marvellously expressed. The relation of these figures to the landscape is such that we feel as if we, too, were in this lovely, English, sylvan spot. We seem to hear the plash of the tiny waterfall and the sound of the horse’s lips as he quenches his thirst. In just one moment more and the sweet, gentle, dreamy boy will pat his friend’s warm, brown neck, leap lightly on his back and off they will go merrily

“to seek fresh woods and pastures new.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field_

JOHN WALTER TEMPEST

--_George Romney_]

The picture is in oils on canvas (90 × 58 inches) and was painted in 1779–1780. In the _Catalogue Raisonné_ of Romney’s works we read:

“Whole length, when a youth, standing, facing towards and looking to the front; long hair; purple dress, white turned-down collar, white stockings and black shoes with silver buckles; standing by his horse, which is drinking at a stream to the left; right hand holding the reins; left hand holding whip; trees in the distance.”

For several years this lovely picture was in the Collection of Asher Wertheimer, Esq., of London.

John Walter Tempest was the only son of John Tempest, Esq., of Sherburn, County Durham, and member of Parliament for Durham. He died in 1793 at Brighthelmstone, where he had gone for his health.

The German critic, August Grisebach, has a profound admiration for this portrait. Writing in _Die Kunst für Alle_ (1908), he says:

“As a new representation of the half-grown boy Romney’s _John Walter Tempest_ stands next to the _Blue Boy_. In place of the warm lighting of the brilliant silk of the correctly adorned boy in Van Dyck style and the aristocratic pose of the manufacturer’s son, is the simple cloth coat of subdued violet against the light-brown horse, so quiet and reserved in color and line, similar to an antique relief.”

_The Strawberry Girl_ is reckoned among the most original of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s works. Surely _John Walter Tempest_ is one of Romney’s most brilliant triumphs! Moreover, the picture is highly original.

For a great number of years George Romney in his house, No. 32 Cavendish Square, shared the patronage of the aristocracy with Reynolds and Gainsborough. Romney’s career was remarkable, for he had almost no training. Romney was born in 1734 at Beckside, near Dalton in Cumberland, the son of a cabinet-maker, who wrote his name Rumney. He, too, was destined for a cabinet-maker, but made the acquaintance in Kendal of a portrait-painter named Christopher Steele, who had studied with Carle Van Loo, and became his pupil and apprentice in 1755. Romney soon painted a number of portraits in Kendal and also a hand holding a letter for the town post-office, which attracted much attention.

Undoubtedly Romney acquired something of the French style through this teacher and we may regard him indirectly as a pupil of Van Loo. Certainly there is a quality in Romney that finds response in the French painters of the Eighteenth Century.

Lord Gower says in his _Romney_ (London, 1904):

“Apparently the Count made use of his pupil to prepare and grind his colors and to carve frames for his portraits. Later these color-grindings must have been of great use to Romney, and the preparation and mode of laying on the oil colors may account for the excellence and permanency of his paintings, which have stood admirably and unfadingly the test of time and which are in most cases as fresh and brilliant, as clear and transparent, as when they left Romney’s studio nearly a century and a half ago. It is not without interest that one recalls how all the great Italian and Flemish Masters instructed their pupils in the preparation of the minutest detail in all things relating to their painting, from the preliminary grinding of the colors and the laying on of the groundwork of their subject, whether on paint or canvas; for not only were the great Italian and Flemish old painters past masters in all that appertained to the technicalities of their art, but honest and loyal in seeing no detail, however irksome, omitted which could give permanency and endurance to their creations; hence those marvels of color, paintings three and four centuries old which still glow with all the brilliancy of gems and flowers, as radiant as some noble stained-glass window in some glorious Gothic fane.”

In 1762, when he was but twenty-eight, Romney moved to London (leaving his wife, son, and daughter) and established himself in the great city. As a painter of excellent portraits at low prices Romney soon saved enough money for a visit to Paris, and hard work enabled him to close his studio and spend two years in Italy. Soon after his return in 1775, Romney removed from Gray’s Inn to No. 32 Cavendish Square, formerly occupied by the painter, Francis Cotes, (who had died in 1770). A portrait of the _Duke of Richmond Reading_ launched Romney into fame and fortune. Thenceforward there was nothing to do but work. Romney became the fashion and ranked with Gainsborough and Reynolds; and, as his prices were considerably less than theirs, his studio was never empty of sitters. Romney’s _Diaries_ show his amazing industry and a golden register of the nobility and gentry besides people of fashion and artistic distinction. The year 1777, for instance, shows six hundred sittings which Mr. Ward calculates as representing from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty finished portraits. Romney’s charming style was now fully developed and some of his loveliest portraits date from this period: the _Countess of Warwick and her Children_; _Lady Susan Lenox_; _Lady Derby_ (see page 401); _Lady Albemarle_; _Lord Gower’s Children Dancing_; _John Walter Tempest_; and _Lady Craven_, which inspired Horace Walpole to write:

“Full many an artist has on canvas fix’d All charms that Nature’s pencil ever mix’d-- The Witchery of Eyes, the Grace that tips The inexpressible douceur of Lips Romney alone, in this fair image caught Each Charm’s Expression and each Feature’s thought. And shows how in their sweet assemblage sit Taste, Spirit, Softness, Sentiment, and Wit.”--H. W.

Therefore, it will be seen that Romney had been producing beautiful work before the advent of the beautiful Emma Hart, the future Lady Hamilton.

Romney left Cavendish Square in 1798, having bought a house at Hollybush Hill, Hampstead, from which he removed two years later to return to his wife and son at Kendal. He bought the estate of Whitestock, near Ulverstone, where his son finished the house he did not live to complete. Romney died in 1802, having been for two or three years in a state of complete imbecility.

“For the first half-century or more after his death his work was neglected. Hidden in private houses, the public never saw it; his biographies did not interest people; he had left no group of influential friends to hand down his memory. There was no such machinery of celebrity in his case as had existed so abundantly in Sir Joshua’s who lived not only by his pictures but by a multitude of lovely engravings and by the written and spoken word of colleagues, pupils, and friends. So Romney’s fame may almost be said to have died away during the dark ages between 1820 and 1850; and Christie’s Catalogues show that in those days he was ignored by collectors and by galleries, such as then existed. In the general revival of æsthetic intelligence which began about the middle of the century--a revival of which the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the eloquence of Ruskin, and the growth of a new class of wealthy amateurs were so many symptoms and conditions--Romney began to emerge once more. Never was there an artist who lived more wholly in his art. ‘In his painting-room,’ said his pupil, Robinson, ‘he seemed to have the highest enjoyment of life, and the more he painted the greater flow of spirits he acquired.’ It is true that, by one of the ironies of history, it was not primarily in portrait-painting that he was interested, but in those larger schemes and subjects to which, according to the classification of his time, he gave a higher place.”[35]

THE HON. MRS. DAVENPORT.

_George Romney (1734–1802)._

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

The _Hon. Mrs. Davenport_ (Charlotte Sneyd) is another of Romney’s superlative creations. She is the personification of a gentle English beauty, who might well have sat for the portrait of Tennyson’s “Queen of the Rosebud Garden of Girls” in _Maud_.

Mrs. Davenport, dressed in perfect taste, is posed against a lovely landscape background. Her gown is a delicate, yet glowing pink, and her cape is white velvet trimmed with white fur. She also wears a white scarf with brown ribbon and a white felt hat trimmed with brown and white ribbons. Her powdered hair is arranged in soft ringlets and a black velvet band around her neck affords a note of contrast to the general lightness of the color of the costume. A fashionable muff adds a _chic_ touch. The face is remarkably sweet and intelligent, as well as beautiful, and the whole impression given by the portrait is of a charming, gentle, gracious, and lovable personality.

Charlotte Sneyd, born in 1756, was the daughter of Mr. Ralph Sneyd of _Keele Hall_, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, descended from an ancient family of Chester, one of whom had been knighted on the battlefield of Pinkie in 1547. Her mother was the daughter of Sir W. W. Bugot, fifth Baronet of Blithefield, and the grand-daughter of the first Earl of Dartmouth.

[Illustration:

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

THE HON. MRS. DAVENPORT

--_George Romney_]

Charlotte Sneyd was married in 1777 to Mr. Davies Davenport, High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1783, and M. P. from 1806 to 1830. His seats were Capesthorne, Crewe, and Calvely, Nantwich. Their youngest son took the extra surname of Bromley and owned _Baginton Hall_, Coventry. The Hon. Mrs. Davenport died in 1829. She was a cousin of Honora Sneyd, whose name has been associated with that series of portraits by Romney known as the “Serena” portraits. Honora was also famous for her engagement to the talented, charming, and ill-fated Major John André.

The picture, painted in oils on canvas (30 × 25 inches), came from the Collection of Brigadier-General Sir William Bromley-Davenport, K. C. B., Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Chester, _Capesthorne Hall_, Cheshire, England.

LADY DERBY.

_George Romney (1734–1802)._

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache._

Of _Elizabeth, Countess of Derby_, Romney made one of his most beautiful portraits and one of the most beautiful portraits, moreover, of that great portrait period in which Romney worked. Everything about it is lovely. There is no color in the picture except Lady Derby’s golden hair and the green and brown tones of the distant landscape and of the tree behind her. The dress, a thin white India mull of exquisite fineness and transparency, is draped over a white brocade skirt, making a costume which is the quintessence of purity and lightness; and Romney has treated the white so perfectly that the picture seems to emit a celestial radiance. Lady Derby has the fresh English complexion of rose and white, and her golden hair is like sunshine and amber. The pose is so easy and natural that we may safely guess it was a characteristic one. Lady Derby seems unconscious of her charm; but she was certainly too beautiful not to know it.