Thursday, September 14, 2017

Early 18th-century Portraits I

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of a man
ca. 1714-16
oil on canvas
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of an officer
ca. 1714-15
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

"Some months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand.  Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her lady's library, till such time as she was in readiness to receive me.  The very sound of a lady's library gave me a great curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order.  At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of China placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture.  The quartos were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid.  The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colours, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame, that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with the greatest variety of dyes.  That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarines, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in China ware.  In the midst of the room was a little Japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff-box made in the shape of a little book.  I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the numbers, like fagots in the muster of a regiment.  I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixt kind of furniture, as seemed very suitable for both the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in a grotto, or in a library."

 Joseph Addison in The Spectator (April 12, 1711)    

Godfrey Kneller
Portrait of a woman as St Agnes
ca. 1705-1710
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Godfrey Kneller
Portrait of Henry Portman Seymour in armor
1714
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Godfrey Kneller
Portrait known as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
ca. 1715-20
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Godfrey Kneller
Portrait of Alexander Pope crowned with ivy
ca. 1721
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Godfrey Kneller
Portrait of Lady Henrietta Crofts, Duchess of Bolton
ca. 1715
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Rosalba Carriera
Portrait of a gentleman
ca. 1730-40
pastel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Rosalba Carriera
Portrait of Pisana Mocenigo née Corner of Venice
ca. 1735-45
pastel
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Rosalba Carriera
Portrait of Crown Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony
1739
pastel
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Rosalba Carriera
Portrait of Sir James Gray
ca. 1744-45
pastel
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Jonathan Richardson, Senior
Portrait of Nathaniel Seymour
ca. 1730-35
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Jonathan Richardson, Senior
Portrait of Alexander Pope
1738
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Joseph Highmore
The Harlowe Family from Samuel Richardson's Clarissa
ca. 1745-47
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art