ironmonger in an extensive way of business, living at 31 Greek Street
(at the corner of King Street), Soho, between 1728 (if not before)
and 1768, when he died. According to the _Book for a Rainy Day_,
he was ‘an immensely rich man.’ The younger Buttall continued in the
business of his father until 1796, when his effects were sold by Sharpe
and Coxe, the well-known auctioneers. These effects included premises
in Soho and the City, a share in Drury Lane Theatre, many drawings
by Gainsborough, and pictures by the same hand and others, wine, and
musical instruments. It has been asserted that a _Blue Boy_ (for
there can hardly be a doubt that more than one version of the work
exists) was sold on this occasion.
“A story has been credited that _The Blue Boy_ was produced by
Gainsborough to refute a dictum of Sir Joshua Reynolds, delivered in
his _Eighth Discourse_ to the Students of the Royal Academy, December
10, 1778: ‘It ought, in my opinion to be indispensably observed, that
the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm, mellow color,
yellow, red, or a yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the
green colors be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used
only to support and set off these warm colors; and for this purpose, a
small proportion of cold colors will be sufficient. Let this conduct
be reversed; let the light be cold and the surrounding colors warm, as
we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it
will be out of the power of Art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian,
to make a picture splendid and harmonious.’
“It is obvious that the _Eighth Discourse_ may have been delivered
covertly to depreciate a picture which had been exhibited eight years
before, but this is not likely; or it may be assumed that the painting
was produced to demonstrate the futility of the President’s counsel.
It is obvious that Gainsborough might, and probably did, find occasion
to illustrate a principle which is apparently opposed to the dictum of
Reynolds, without reference to the _Eighth Discourse_, or previous
utterance of the P. R. A. Van Dyck repeatedly employed masses of blue
in draperies, with results which are at least equal to those of the
picture before us. The _Children of Charles the First_ at Windsor
is an example of the fact.[34] Leslie and every practical critic
recognized that Gainsborough had evaded the full and just method of
controverting the declaration of Sir Joshua rather than successfully
assailed it.
“The picture before us is known to have been exhibited at the British
Institution with a collection of Gainsborough’s works--the first formed
independently of the artist and his wife--in 1814, under the title of
_Portrait of a Youth_ and again at the same place, in 1834, as ‘117,
_A Young Gentleman in a Landscape_; the Picture known as _The Boy in
Blue_.’ It was at Manchester in 1857; the International Exhibition
in 1862; and at the Royal Academy in 1870. The last occasion evoked
the discussion above alluded to, when the other _Blue Boy_ became
prominent. The question may be summed up by saying that probably the
younger Buttall had a version of his own portrait, while the Prince had
another.
“Reynolds, by the way of supporting his own dictum, produced _A Yellow
Boy_ in the ‘_Portrait of Charles, Earl of Dalkeith_’ with an owl and
a dog, which was No. 132 at the Grosvenor Exhibition, in 1884. ‘_A
Portrait of a Lady_,’ by Gainsborough, known as ‘_The Blue Lady_’ was
at the British Institution in 1859; ‘_The Pink Boy_’ (Master Nicholls,
grandson of Dr. Mead), by Gainsborough, was at the Academy in 1879,
No. 39; it has recently been sold to a member of the Rothschild
family. _The Blue Boy_ is at once the complement and the antithesis of
_Mrs. Graham_ (born Cathcart), now in the Scottish National Gallery
(Edinburgh).”
Turning now to M. H. Spielmann in _British Portrait Painting_:
“In the view expressed by the late F. G. Stephens and others--an
opinion I am inclined to share--the portrait known as _The Blue Boy_,
more properly Master Jonathan Buttall, belongs to the year 1770, or
thereabouts, and not to a period ten years later, as is argued by
those who desire, in the face of internal evidence, to apply to it a
passage--usually cited incorrectly--in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s _Eighth
Discourse_ (delivered in 1778), against the use of masses of cold blue.
The stricture could not possibly apply to this picture, which triumphs
by virtue of its _warm_ blue, as it does by nobility of pose (more
suggestive of a prince, as we imagine a prince should be, than of the
son of a wealthy ironmonger of Greek Street), by the well controlled
power and dignity made manifest throughout and by the brilliant brush
charged with fat paint. The finely posed head with its admirably
expressed character of boyhood and a good deal of sturdy doggedness
behind the intelligent eyes, is rendered a little more heavily than is
Gainsborough’s wont; but that it is a masterpiece of portraiture, as it
is of color, cannot be challenged. This portrait, which from its manner
may be believed to have been painted eight years before the father’s
death and not two years after it, is the first to show Gainsborough’s
outstanding genius as a painter of independent thought and striking
modernity. At the same time it should be pointed out an earlier _Blue
Boy_ by him exists in the portrait of his nephew, Edward Gardiner,
painted in 1768.
“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.