Horatia--remembered to-day especially for the group portrait Sir Joshua
Reynolds painted of them and which belonged to Sir Horace Walpole in
1782.
Lord Waldegrave died in 1763; and on Sept 6, 1766, Maria, now Dowager
Countess of Waldegrave, was married privately to H. R. H. William
Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, seven years her junior.
The marriage was performed in her own house in Pall Mall by her own
chaplain and she thus became the sister-in-law of George III. The
secret was kept for some time and the King banished his brother from
Court, but after two years the Duke was taken back into Royal favor and
the Duchess bore her honors with such grace and dignity that she became
very popular at Court.
The portrait represented here, oils on canvas (35½ × 27½ inches), was
painted about 1779, or before.
“We hear,” the _Public Advertiser_ printed on May 4, 1772, “that the
gentlemen upon the Committee for managing the Royal Academy have been
guilty of a scandalous meanness to a capital artist by secreting a
whole-length picture of an English Countess for fear their Majesties
should see it; and this only upon a full conviction that it was the
best finished picture sent in this year to the Exhibition.” Again in
1775 a society reporter for the _Morning Chronicle_ gathered up this
piece of gossip: “The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester are often going
to a famous painter’s in Pall Mall; and it is reported that he is now
doing both their pictures, which are intended to be presented to a
great lady.”
The picture is nearly three-quarter length and represents the Duchess
in a gold-tinted dress with hair dressed high and powdered and wearing
lovely pearls. Her head is posed upon her left hand and the arm rests
upon a pedestal that is barely visible. There is good reason for
thinking this portrait was originally full-length and that it has been
cut down. It is interesting to compare this portrait of the _Duchess
of Gloucester_ with _The Hon. Mrs. Graham_ in the National Gallery,
Edinburgh, who is painted, full length, and is resting her arm,
likewise, on a pedestal.
“The introduction of a parapet, or indeed, of any kind of architectural
setting in a portrait of kit-cat size is most unusual. The left arm
resting on the parapet and the large scale on which the head is here
painted, confirm our view that our canvas was originally, as Fulcher
claims, a whole length. This canvas to-day is almost exactly kit-cat
size. It may well have been cut down to meet the requirements of
hanging. Half a century ago such a practice was not unknown, especially
in the English Royal Collections. It will be remembered that the lower
portions of the canvas of Gainsborough’s _Eldest Princesses_ was
very inceremoniously cut away in the early part of the Nineteenth
Century.
“A kit-cat, strictly speaking, is a canvas for a portrait less than a
half-length, but including the hands, and measuring 36 by 28 inches.
It is so called from the portraits of the members of the Club at Barn
Elms, who seem to have originally met in the pie-house kept in Shire
Lane, London, by one Kit (i.e. Christopher) Cat. These portraits are
now in the Baker Collection at Bayfordbury, near Hertford.”[32]
In June 1904 _The London Times_ stated that “The Duke of
Cambridge’s pictures, which are now hung on Christie’s walls, form
the largest collection of portraits of the reigning house that has
ever been offered for sale. All, in fact, represent George III and
his family, with their husbands and wives. By far the finest is
Gainsborough’s _Maria Walpole, Countess of Waldegrave and Duchess of
Gloucester_, Horace Walpole’s beautiful niece.”
These art-treasures, as well as Gloucester House, had been inherited
by the Late Duke of Cambridge from his aunt, the second and last
Duchess of Gloucester, who died in 1857.
The sale of this picture created a sensation. Again referring to the
_London Times_ (June 13, 1904), we read: “The honors of the day
distinctly fell to Gainsborough, whose beautiful portrait of _Maria
Walpole_ has established a record price for this artist’s pictures
at auction. Bidding was started on Saturday at 5000 guineas and in
rather more than half a dozen bids reached 12,000 guineas, at which
it was knocked down to Messrs. Agnew & Sons. The price, therefore,
quite eclipses the 10,000 guineas paid in 1876 for the famous stolen
_Duchess of Devonshire_, which remained the record price for a
Gainsborough until Saturday.”
In the following November, the _Majestic_ brought the
$60,000-Gainsborough to New York.
This portrait, when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799, was
described by Sir Horace Walpole as “very good and like.”
Maria Walpole died in 1807, two years after the Duke of Gloucester,
leaving one son and two daughters. Of her other portraits Lionel Cust
in _The Royal Collection of Paintings_, Vol. I, 1905, says:
“The beautiful Countess of Waldegrave was one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s
favorite sitters. She sat to him in 1759, after her marriage, for the
full-length portrait in peeress’s robes, which belongs to the present
Earl Waldegrave, and again in 1761 and 1762, for the well-known
portrait in a turban and for the Madonna-like group with her child,
which was bequeathed by Frances, Countess Waldegrave, to the Duc
d’Aumale, and is now in the Condé Collection at Chantilly. She sat
again to Reynolds in 1764, as a widow in mourning for her husband, and
more than once again during her widowhood. She sat to him in October,
1767, when really Duchess of Gloucester, for a portrait to be given to
her father, Sir Edward Walpole.
“After the marriage had been revealed to the world, the Duchess sat
to Reynolds in 1771, for the full-length seated portrait now at
Buckingham Palace. This was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1774.
This portrait descended to her daughter, H. R. H. Princess Sophia
Matilda of Gloucester, who at her death in November, 1844, bequeathed
the portrait to H. R. H. Prince Albert, the late Prince Consort.
“The Duchess of Gloucester sat for the last time to Reynolds in 1779,
for a group of herself and her daughter, Princess Sophia Matilda.”
GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.
_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._
_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee._
She stands here--proud, elegant, disdainful, stylish, aristocratic,
beautiful, and altogether charming, in her dashing, large, black hat
worn at a _debonnaire_ angle, white dress, and light petticoat and
light blue sash, looking at us with the most marvellous eyes ever put
upon canvas and a mouth that matches them in such naturalness that we
expect the Duchess to smile at any moment. Her eyes have such fire and
sparkle that they pierce right through us. It is hard to believe that
we are looking upon a painted portrait--it must be the Duchess herself
who gives us that alert, penetrating, fiery, and mocking glance.
This picture has had a most romantic history. It is the famous “Lost
Duchess,” stolen in London, and found after twenty-five years in
America.
The Duchess, in some unknown way, fell into the hands of a Mrs.
Maginnis, an old schoolmistress, who had it cut down to fit the space
over the chimney-piece in her sitting-room and burned up the cut-off
piece. Mr. Bentley, a dealer bought the picture from Mrs. Maginnis for
£56 and then sold it to Mr. Wynn Ellis, a wealthy City merchant, who
sent this _Portrait of a Lady_ to be engraved by Messrs. Henry
Graves & Co. This firm, having already engraved the Clifden Duchess of
Devonshire, at once identified the subject. When the Wynn Ellis Sale
took place at Christie’s, June 6, 1876, this portrait created a great
deal of excitement. It was catalogued as follows:
“T. Gainsborough, R. A. _The Duchess of Devonshire_, in a white
dress and blue silk petticoat and sash, large black hat and feathers,
59½ × 45 inches.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee_
GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
--_Thomas Gainsborough_]
As this portrait of the Duchess was the first “star” that ever rose
in an auction-sale, it is worth while putting forward here the
contemporary account of an event which has passed into history. The
_London Times_ records:
“The sale of the modern pictures belonging to the Wynn Ellis Collection
on Saturday last created such a sensation as has never been experienced
in the picture world of London. Throughout the week the pictures had
attracted a considerable number of visitors, but on the day preceding
the sale the interest came to a climax and crowds filled the rooms of
Messrs. Christie, Manson, & Woods. Anyone passing the neighborhood of
St. James’s Square might well have supposed that some great lady was
holding a reception and this, in fact, was pretty much what was going
on within the Gallery in King Street. All the world had come to see
a beautiful Duchess, created by Gainsborough; and so far as we could
observe, they all came, saw, and were conquered by her fascinating
beauty.
“When the portrait was placed before the crowded audience a burst of
applause showed the universal admiration of the picture. The biddings
commenced at one of 1000 guineas, which was immediately met with one of
3000 guineas from Mr. Agnew; and, amid a silence of quite breathless
attention, the bids followed in quick succession until 10,000 guineas
was announced. Mr. Agnew then called 10,100 guineas and won the battle
in this most extraordinary contest. The audience densely packed on
raised seats round and on the floor of the house, stamped, clapped, and
bravoed.”
And now comes the story!
Twenty days after this sale, on the night of May 26, 1876, the
galleries of Messrs. Agnew were entered, the canvas was cut from the
stretching frame, and the Duchess was carried off!
Where?
By whom?
The picture was already too well-known to be saleable and to make
it still better known photographs of the picture were immediately
placed in every shop-window in London. The subject became of universal
interest: pictures of the Duchess were printed on every article of
merchandise possible; and fashion decreed that once again the Duchess’s
huge hat should be the proper thing to wear. For many years afterwards
the “Gainsborough Hat” and the “Picture Hat” continued to be worn in
country towns across the Atlantic, far away from London, by persons who
had never heard of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire.
Sensation No. 2.
In March, 1901, the newspapers all over the world announced that the
“Lost Duchess” had been found!
Mr. Morland Agnew, after various negotiations, was handed a parcel in
the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago which proved to be the Gainsborough
canvas. The discovery had been made by the New York Pinkerton Detective
Agency, who found the thief, one Adam Worth alias Henry Richmond, son
of a German Jew, who had settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and who
was one of the most famous and clever criminals ever known.
A few days after its return the picture was purchased by Mr. J. P.
Morgan at a price beyond £30,000.
Many years before, in 1762–3, Gainsborough had painted in his studio at
Bath the Duchess of Devonshire when she was little Georgiana Spencer,
aged six, in a white dress, pink ribbons, and dainty cap. At the
same period Gainsborough painted portraits of her parents, Earl and
Countess Spencer of Althorp, the one of the Countess ranking very high
among Gainsborough’s works of the Bath period. The Countess, Margaret
Georgiana, daughter of the Hon. Stephen Poyntz, was a very beautiful
and extremely wealthy woman and the Earl also possessed enormous wealth
and became famed for the magnificent Collection he made at Althorp. The
marriage of this couple in 1755 created a sensation and was much talked
of in the gossipy letters and memoirs of the day. One eye-witness
related: “The bride followed in a new sedan-chair lined with white
satin, a black page walking before and three footmen behind, all in the
most superb liveries. The diamonds worn by the newly married pair were
given to Mr. Spencer by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and were worth
£100,000. The shoe-buckles of the bridegroom alone were worth £30,000.”
Lady Harvey related that the wedding-party went from London to
Althorp “in three coaches with six horses and two hundred horsemen.
The villages through which they passed were in great alarm, some of
the people shutting themselves up in their houses, and others coming
out with pitchforks, spits, and spades, crying out ‘The invasion has
come’, believing that the Pretender and the King of France were both
come together; and great relief was experienced when the formidable
cavalcade had passed without setting fire to the habitation, or
murdering the inhabitants.”
The year after this marriage Mrs. Delany, Horace Walpole’s friend,
met “Mrs. Spencer, one of the finest figures I ever saw, in white
and silver with all her jewels and scarlet decorations; her modest,
unaffected air gives a lustre to all her finery that would be very
tinsel without it.”
Is it any wonder that with such parentage Georgiana Spencer should have
had brains, beauty, charm, and perfect equipment in every way for that
world of society which was her inheritance?
Georgiana was born on June 9, 1757, and was married at the age of
seventeen to the fifth Duke of Devonshire, regarded as the “first
match” in England. “Georgiana was a lively girl,” said Walpole,
“natural and full of grace.” Immediately the Duchess became “the
irresistible queen of ton” and the most conspicuous leader of society
whenever and wherever she appeared. She dazzled every gathering by
her beauty; astonished everyone with her elegant and extravagant
dress; and charmed everybody by her wit and her grace. The Duchess
was always among the gay butterflies who masqueraded at the Pantheon,
promenaded at Ranelagh, danced at assemblies, or played for high-stakes
at fashionable gaming-tables. To think of London society in the late
Eighteenth Century without the Duchess of Devonshire, is impossible.
Walpole writes that she “effaces all without being a beauty; but her
youthful figure, flowing good nature, sense, and lively modesty and
modest familiarity make her a phenomenon.”
The Duchess had a clever mind and she delighted in the society of
persons of talent. Fox, Sheridan, and Selwyn were among her special
friends. The story of her campaigning for Fox with Fox’s sister, Lady
Duncannon, and even selling “a kiss for a vote” is told by many pens
and by pencils as well, for the Duchess afforded fine material for
the caricaturists. The Duchess was much pleased, it is said, by the
compliment paid to her during the Fox campaign by an Irishman, who
exclaimed: “Sure I could light me pipe at her eyes!” And Gainsborough
managed to fix this flaming glance in the famous Satterlee portrait.
Coarse satire attacked the Duchess of Devonshire as it attacks all
who enter the political arena; but, on the other hand, there are many
tributes from contemporary pens to her sweetness of disposition and to
her noble and generous qualities of heart.
In 1806 upon hearing of her death at Devonshire House, Piccadilly,
(just lately demolished), the Prince of Wales exclaimed: “We have lost
the best-loved woman in England” and Charles James Fox replied: “We
have lost the kindest heart in England.”
The Duchess of Devonshire occasionally wrote verse. Her _Passage
of the Mountain of St. Gothard_, dedicated to her children (she
had a son and two daughters), was published with a French translation
in 1802; an Italian translation was printed in 1803; and a German
translation in 1805. This poem gave occasion to Coleridge’s ode with
the lines:
“O lady nursed in pomp and pleasure
Whence learned you that heroic measure?”
Gainsborough could not have made this or any other portrait of the
Duchess of Devonshire until after 1782, because, in that year, Bate
published in the _Morning Herald_, the following lines:
“O Gainsboro! thou whose genius soars so high,
Wild as an eagle in an unknown sky,
To Devon turn!--thy pencil there shall find
A subject equal to thy happy mind!
Amidst thy fairest scenes, thy brightest dyes,
Like young Aurora let the Beauty rise.”
Another portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough is also
in this country, owned by the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon. It represents a
whole length life-size figure leaning against a pedestal and came from
the Collection of the late Earl Spencer at Althorp, Nottinghamshire.
THE BLUE BOY.
_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._
_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry E. Huntington._
The _Blue Boy_ is without doubt the most famous picture in the world.
When it passed from the Duke of Westminster’s Collection in Grosvenor
House, London, by private sale to the late Mr. Henry E. Huntington, the
event created a sensation in the art-world, which soon extended to the
general public. No painting was ever exploited so widely in the press
and when exhibited at the Duveen Galleries in New York, before starting
on its journey to California, the _Blue Boy_ attracted unusual crowds.
Before it bade farewell to London the famous picture was exhibited at
the National Gallery and the following extract from a letter of Sir
Charles J. Holmes, Director of the National Gallery, dated January
24, 1922, to Sir Joseph Duveen, gives an idea of how the portrait is
regarded in England:
“My dear Duveen: I saw the last, for the time being anyhow, of the
_Blue Boy_ this afternoon at ten minutes past four and feel bound
to write these lines to thank you and Mrs. Huntington for the pleasure
which the sight of it has given to more than 90,000 people during the
last three weeks. It is indeed a most brilliant thing, outshining in
its present condition all our English pictures at Trafalgar Square and
when the natural mellowing of the varnish during the next two or three
years has taken place its perfections will be enhanced. And though its
passing from us has been the cause of universal regret, that regret has
not been tinged with bitterness. It is generally recognized that while
in the process of recovering from the War, the Nation could not have
paid the price which its fortunate owner was able to afford.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of the late Mr. Henry E. Huntington_
THE BLUE BOY
--_Thomas Gainsborough_]
The picture, an oil painting on canvas, is large (5 feet, 10 inches ×
4 feet) and represents a young boy, Master Jonathan Buttall of London,
life-size, dressed in a blue suit, holding a broad-rimmed hat in
his right hand and very conspicuously standing forth from a landscape
background with a dark, cloudy sky.
The following notes from the _Farington Diary_, recently published,
bring us into relation with the two early sales.
Under date of Dec. 15, 1796, we find:
“Buttall’s sale. I went to Gainsborough’s picture of a _Boy in a Blue
Vandyke Dress_ sold for 35 guineas. Several of his drawings were sold
in pairs. Some went so high as 8 guineas and a half the pair.”
“May 25, 1802. I painted till four o’clock and then went to Nesbitt’s
sale in Grafton Street, where I met Hoppner, who had purchased the
_Boy in Blue Dress_ by Gainsborough, which was Buttal’s, for 65
guineas. At Buttalls sale it was sold for 35 to Mr. Nesbitt.”
The picture is in marvellous condition. When Lord Ronald
Sutherland-Gower saw it in the Duke of Westminster’s Collection before
it came to America, he exclaimed:
“The _Blue Boy_ at Grosvenor House has all the glamor and charm of
a portrait of a fairy prince.”
These few words explain the spell that the picture seems to cast upon
every one who sees it, for whenever _The Blue Boy_ has been exhibited
crowds have stood enraptured before it.
Regarding Mr. Nesbitt’s connection with the picture we have the
following story from the Rev. J. T. Trimmer, Vicar of Marston-on-Dove,
Derbyshire:
“Many years ago there resided at Heston a Mr. Nesbitt, a person of
substance and a companion of George, Prince of Wales. He once possessed
Gainsborough’s _Blue Boy_ and in the following way. He was dining with
the Prince. ‘Nesbitt,’ said the Prince, ‘that picture, (pointing to
the _Blue Boy_) shall be yours.’ At first he thought the Prince must
be joking, but, finding he was decidedly serious, Nesbitt, who was a
_beau_ of the first water, made all suitable acknowledgments for H. R.
H.’s generosity and next morning the _Blue Boy_ arrived, followed in
due time by a bill for £300, which he had the satisfaction of paying. I
heard Mr. Nesbitt many years ago tell the story at my father’s table.”
From Mr. Nesbitt the _Blue Boy_ came into possession of John Hoppner,
the artist, who sold it to Earl Grosvenor. Then, of course, _The Blue
Boy_ passed as an heirloom to his successor, the Duke of Westminster.
For many years _The Blue Boy_ hung in Grosvenor House, London, in the
same room with Sir Joshua Reynolds’s _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_,
the two most famous portraits of the two most famous English painters.
And it is one of the romances of art that these two portraits should
have crossed the Atlantic and to be again united, as it were, this time
in a California mansion.
Gainsborough had doubtless some reason for painting this portrait;
but it is not the reason usually given,--namely that it was done in
refutation of a theory expressed by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1778. Apart
from the reasons now accepted to disprove this theory, the picture
is too joyously painted for a controversial and academic _tour de
force_.
One of Gainsborough’s latest biographers, Mr. William T. Whitley,[33]
discovered the following in a number of _The European Magazine_ (August
1798), which would seem to give the real reason for the genesis of
Gainsborough’s famous portrait:
_Mr. Gainsborough_
“One of the finest pictures this great artist ever painted, and which
might be put upon a par with any portrait that ever was executed, is
that of a boy in a blue Vandyke dress, which is now in the possession
of a tradesman in Greek Street. Gainsborough had seen a portrait of
a boy by Titian for the first time, and, having found a model that
pleased him, he set to work with all the enthusiasm of his genius. ‘I
am proud,’ he said, ‘of being of the same profession with Titian, and
was resolved to attempt something like him.’”
So much has been written about this portrait and the copies that have
been made of it that great confusion has resulted, and the constant
repetition of the same story by writers has tended to obscure rather
than to clarify the subject. However, the theory now accepted is
that the portrait of _The Blue Boy_ first appeared in public at the
Royal Academy in 1770, sent there by Gainsborough himself,--a theory
supported by a letter written by Mary Moser, R. A. to Fuseli, then in
Rome, in which she said: “It is only telling you what you know already
of the Exhibition of 1770, to say that Gainsborough is beyond himself
in a Vandyke habit.” Another argument in favor of this date is found in
a conversation with an old artist, John Taylor, recorded by J. T. Smith
in his _Book for a Rainy Day_.
The person, chiefly, if not wholly, responsible for the first
suggestion of the theory that Gainsborough painted the picture to
disprove Sir Joshua Reynolds’s pronouncement regarding color seems
to have been John Burnet, the engraver of some of Wilkie’s pictures
and a writer on art. The legend began to be circulated in 1817, when
Burnet published his _Practical Treatise on Painting_, where, after
challenging the rules laid down by Sir Joshua, he says: “I believe
Gainsborough painted the portrait of a boy dressed in blue, now in the
possession of Lord Grosvenor, to show the fallacy of this doctrine.”
That seems to be all there is to it; and, once started, the story
became widespread and was handed on from pen to pen and from lip to
lip, until nearly everybody believes it.
Let us turn, however, to some of the authorities. First to F. G.
Stephens: