GEORGE RICHMOND, R.A.
(1809-1896)
A Study for a full-length Portrait of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903)
c.1871
Pen and stump with brown ink and ink wash, drawn on the back of a sheet of writing paper with printed address: ‘Hatfield House, Hatfield, Herts’
Verso: two pen and ink studies for the same figure, one full-face rather than three-quarter face
22.4 x 17.9 cm
Acquired by a Private Collector, UK
Provenance
Agnew’s & W.S Fine Art, London, 2001
Sotheby’s, London, Important British Drawings, Watercolours and Portrait Miniatures, 23 November 2006, lot 252
Private Collection, USA
Exhibited
Thomas Agnew & Sons, W.S Fine Art, Missing Pages. George Richmond R.A. 1809-1896, London, October 31–November 23, 2001, no.84
Literature
Susan Sloman, Andrew Wyld, Colin Harrison, Missing Pages: George Richmond, R.A., 1809–1896, Drawings, Watercolours, Letters, Journals & Notebooks, exh. cat., no.84
References
[1] A.P. Oppé, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, 1952, p.9
[2] Hesketh Pearson, Disraeli - His Life and Personality, 1951, p.269
[3] Robert Blake, Disraeli, 1966, p.499
[4] Walter Pater on the ‘curious beauty’ of Leonardo’s drawings. Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 1894, p.118
[5] No. 290
[6] A half-length version of the portrait was presented by Richmond in 1873 to All Souls College, University of Oxford
[7] Richmond's account book records that he was paid £1,155 for the picture in 1871-72. Susan Sloman, Andrew Wyld, Colin Harrison, Missing Pages: George Richmond, R.A., 1809–1896, Drawings, Watercolours, Letters, Journals & Notebooks, exh. cat., no.84
[8] Susan Sloman, Andrew Wyld, Colin Harrison, Missing Pages: George Richmond, R.A., 1809–1896, Drawings, Watercolours, Letters, Journals & Notebooks, exh. cat., no.84
[9] Now in Ripon College, Oxford. A preliminary oil on paper study was acquired in 1896 by the National Portrait Gallery, London
[10] Richmond painted Lord Salisbury on three separate occasions. A chalk portrait study of Salisbury, dating from the early 1860s, remains in the possession of Hatfield House. Additionally, Richmond created both paintings and chalk drawings of Salisbury’s wife, Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil, Marchioness of Salisbury and their son, James Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne
[11] Raymond Lister, George Richmond: A Critical Biography, 1981, p.12
[12] Raymond Lister, George Richmond: A Critical Biography, 1981, p.12
This dynamic croquis ranks among the most accomplished of George Richmond’s later drawings. Expressing the ‘magic of swift and elegant’ [1] draughtsmanship, the study portrays Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Britain’s fourth-longest-serving Prime Minister (1885-6, 1886-92 and 1895-1902), its tallest too (Salisbury was 6’4”), and a figure described by Benjamin Disraeli as ‘the only man of real courage that it has ever been my lot to work with,’ [2] and by the historian Lord Blake as ‘the most formidable intellectual figure that the Conservative party has ever produced.’ [3]
‘The abstract grace of the bounding lines’ [4] creates a striking decorative pattern which extends both into and onto the figure of Lord Salisbury. With sweeping, energetic strokes of the pen, the lines are expressed primarily as repeating slashes. While modelling the figure and the interior of the room, some lines trail off, abandoning their descriptive purpose in favour of creating an impressionistic effect. Likely drawn in 1871 at Lord Salisbury’s home in Hertfordshire - the picture appears on the reverse of a sheet of writing paper, with the Marquess’s address, ‘Hatfield House’, printed in blue ink - the study is an early idea for a full-length portrait in oils, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873. [5] Still in the Salisbury collection at Hatfield House today, [6] the painting [7] ‘shows the figure [in his Chancellor’s Robes] turned to the right, his left hand resting on a table - the opposite arrangement to this drawing.’ [8] The pose and positioning of Salisbury in the current study closely mirror the arrangement seen in Richmond’s 1864 portrait of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford [9], with the original inspiration likely drawn from the patrician portraits of Titian and Jacopo Tintoretto. On the reverse of the drawing are two additional studies of the Marquess, one of which closely resembles the final composition used in the painting. [10]
‘The importance of Richmond as a recorder of eminent Victorians can hardly be exaggerated.’ [11] In his monograph on the artist, Raymond Lister catalogued approximately 2500 portraits. [12] Among his most distinguished subjects were William Wilberforce, William Ewart Gladstone, Elizabeth Gaskell, Michael Faraday, Queen Adelaide, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Brontë.
GEORGE RICHMOND, R.A.
(1809-1896)
A Study for a full-length Portrait of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903)
c.1871
Pen and stump with brown ink and ink wash, drawn on the back of a sheet of writing paper with printed address: ‘Hatfield House, Hatfield, Herts’
Verso: two pen and ink studies for the same figure, one full-face rather than three-quarter face
22.4 x 17.9 cm
Acquired by a Private Collector, UK
Provenance
Agnew’s & W.S Fine Art, London, 2001
Sotheby’s, London, Important British Drawings, Watercolours and Portrait Miniatures, 23 November 2006, lot 252
Private Collection, USA
Exhibited
Thomas Agnew & Sons, W.S Fine Art, Missing Pages. George Richmond R.A. 1809-1896, London, October 31–November 23, 2001, no.84
Literature
Susan Sloman, Andrew Wyld, Colin Harrison, Missing Pages: George Richmond, R.A., 1809–1896, Drawings, Watercolours, Letters, Journals & Notebooks, exh. cat., no.84
References
[1] A.P. Oppé, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, 1952, p.9
[2] Hesketh Pearson, Disraeli - His Life and Personality, 1951, p.269
[3] Robert Blake, Disraeli, 1966, p.499
[4] Walter Pater on the ‘curious beauty’ of Leonardo’s drawings. Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 1894, p.118
[5] No. 290
[6] A half-length version of the portrait was presented by Richmond in 1873 to All Souls College, University of Oxford
[7] Richmond's account book records that he was paid £1,155 for the picture in 1871-72. Susan Sloman, Andrew Wyld, Colin Harrison, Missing Pages: George Richmond, R.A., 1809–1896, Drawings, Watercolours, Letters, Journals & Notebooks, exh. cat., no.84
[8] Susan Sloman, Andrew Wyld, Colin Harrison, Missing Pages: George Richmond, R.A., 1809–1896, Drawings, Watercolours, Letters, Journals & Notebooks, exh. cat., no.84
[9] Now in Ripon College, Oxford. A preliminary oil on paper study was acquired in 1896 by the National Portrait Gallery, London
[10] Richmond painted Lord Salisbury on three separate occasions. A chalk portrait study of Salisbury, dating from the early 1860s, remains in the possession of Hatfield House. Additionally, Richmond created both paintings and chalk drawings of Salisbury’s wife, Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil, Marchioness of Salisbury and their son, James Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne
[11] Raymond Lister, George Richmond: A Critical Biography, 1981, p.12
[12] Raymond Lister, George Richmond: A Critical Biography, 1981, p.12
This dynamic croquis ranks among the most accomplished of George Richmond’s later drawings. Expressing the ‘magic of swift and elegant’ [1] draughtsmanship, the study portrays Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Britain’s fourth-longest-serving Prime Minister (1885-6, 1886-92 and 1895-1902), its tallest too (Salisbury was 6’4”), and a figure described by Benjamin Disraeli as ‘the only man of real courage that it has ever been my lot to work with,’ [2] and by the historian Lord Blake as ‘the most formidable intellectual figure that the Conservative party has ever produced.’ [3]
‘The abstract grace of the bounding lines’ [4] creates a striking decorative pattern which extends both into and onto the figure of Lord Salisbury. With sweeping, energetic strokes of the pen, the lines are expressed primarily as repeating slashes. While modelling the figure and the interior of the room, some lines trail off, abandoning their descriptive purpose in favour of creating an impressionistic effect. Likely drawn in 1871 at Lord Salisbury’s home in Hertfordshire - the picture appears on the reverse of a sheet of writing paper, with the Marquess’s address, ‘Hatfield House’, printed in blue ink - the study is an early idea for a full-length portrait in oils, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873. [5] Still in the Salisbury collection at Hatfield House today, [6] the painting [7] ‘shows the figure [in his Chancellor’s Robes] turned to the right, his left hand resting on a table - the opposite arrangement to this drawing.’ [8] The pose and positioning of Salisbury in the current study closely mirror the arrangement seen in Richmond’s 1864 portrait of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford [9], with the original inspiration likely drawn from the patrician portraits of Titian and Jacopo Tintoretto. On the reverse of the drawing are two additional studies of the Marquess, one of which closely resembles the final composition used in the painting. [10]
‘The importance of Richmond as a recorder of eminent Victorians can hardly be exaggerated.’ [11] In his monograph on the artist, Raymond Lister catalogued approximately 2500 portraits. [12] Among his most distinguished subjects were William Wilberforce, William Ewart Gladstone, Elizabeth Gaskell, Michael Faraday, Queen Adelaide, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Brontë.