PERSONALIA

  

£300

Presumably 2nd Viscount John Bateman (1721-1802), of Shobdon Court, Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. The artist John Field (1772-1848) was one of the most famous and skilled silhouette artists, who in his early years worked as an assistant to John Miers at his studio in the Strand, London. Characteristic of some of his early work, as in this case, are silhouettes painted in umber with fine strokes of sepia to impart detail. (McKechnie)

The information available from the inscription tells us that the boy's portrait must have been drawn in 1758 (which is consistent in style for both portraits), and that William Baynes must have been born in 1748. Further research is necessary to identify the individuals.

The artist Mrs Sarah Harrington was a well known profilist, who became expert in the hollow-cut method of producing silhouette portraits. Her work mainly dates from the decade 1775-1785.

£150

Lady Mary Bentinck, daughter of the Prime Minister William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738-1809) and Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley (1715-1785).

This relief portrait is taken from James Tassie's sulphide portrait taken in 1788, which was also produced as a portrait medallion by Wedgwood.

£250

John Brown was, famously, servant to Queen Victoria for 38 years. Prince Albert selected Brown as Queen Victoria's personal servant in Scotland in 1858, and he soon became a great favourite with the Queen. After Albert's death in 1861, Brown became indispensable to her, and their relationship was later to be the subject of widespread speculation. Victoria was deeply affected by his death in 1896, and left instructions upon her own death that a picture, a lock of his hair, and various mementoes of him be buried with her. (ODNB)

£600

Bowyer trained in miniature painting in London under John Smart, exhibiting first at the Free Society of Artists in 1782, and at the Royal Academy in 1783. Although he enjoyed much success, his interests also turned to print publishing, and he produced a number of fine illustrated books, reproducing the works of leading artists.  In 1799 he and his wife took Catherine Andras into their household, an orphaned wax modeller from Bristol, who quickly formed a highly successful business under royal and aristocratic patronage (ODNB). One of her finest works in wax was that of Robert Bowyer, executed on a wax ground, the original of which is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (illustrated in D.R.Reilly Portrait Waxes 1953 plate 55). The present wax portrait is mounted on glass, as was her usual practice.

Probably Dr Thomas Busby (1754–1838), the composer and author. Born in Westminster, London, the son of Thomas Busby, a coach painter, and his wife, Ann, he began from 1775 to make his living from music and from journalism and literature. In 1801 he received a doctorate in music from the University of Cambridge. He married Priscilla Angier, and they had seven children, of whom their eldest child was the architect Charles Augustin Busby, who worked and died in Brighton, Sussex. (ODNB). The miniature came from Lewes, Sussex.

The connection between the Murray and Churchill families can be identified through the descendants of Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre 4th Bart (1707-1764). His daughter Joan married in 1769, Charles Churchill, but it has proved difficult to establish how many children they had - there was a son, Charles Henry born 1772 in Perth, Scotland. Perhaps Mary was one of their children, which would then accord with the label.

£350

Rice Richard Clayton (1797-1879) was the son of Sir Richard Clayton 4th Bart and Mary East. He married in 1832, Maria Amelia Nugent (d1880) , daughter of Field Marshall Sir George Nugent, 1st Bart, and Mary Skinner. Rice Clayton held various offices in Buckinghamshire, including Justice of the Peace, High Sheriff , Deputy Lieutenant, and was MP for Aylesbury 1841-1847. He and his wife lived at Hedgerley Park. From the costume style, the portraits appear to date to the 1830s, and may well have been taken soon after their marriage in 1832.

John Abigail Ellis was born 1758, and married Sarah Harris Hannant in 1782 at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Their son Samuel, the subject of this portrait, was born in 1810.

The Hall family and associated families they married into, can be located to the parish of Prestbury, Cheshire. James Hall married Nancy Gosling in 1790, while the connection with Burgess appears to be through the marriage of Thomas Burgess to Lydia Hall on 24th November 1811.

Edward Jacob (1710?–1788), antiquary and naturalist, was born in Canterbury, the eldest son of Edward Jacob, surgeon and alderman, and Jane Violl. Jacob interested himself in the history of Faversham, Kent, soon after moving there about 1735. He developed a great interest in the fossils found on the Isle of Sheppey, submitting a paper to the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions in 1754 on fossil elephant bones, and his Plantae Favershamienses of 1777 included An appendix exhibiting a short view of the fossil bodies of the adjacect Island of Shepey.  He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 5 June 1755, and in 1774 published The History of the Town and Port of Faversham (ODNB). His son John Jacob (1765-1840) was a topographer who married Anna Maria Le Grand in 1789, and lived in South Wales, and Guernsey. Caroline and Elizabeth were two of their many children. This likeness would appear to be a Jacob family heirloom passed down the family via John Jacob.

Margaret Symons is recorded in the 1861 census, the wife of Walter Symons, a baker, with their son Walter (aged 10) and Ewen McGregor her brother (aged 54), in Liberton, Midlothian.

£500

Joseph was the fourth son of John and Mary Molineux of Wolverhampton, who settled in Lewes, Sussex in 1738, where he was engaged in the iron trade. He was appointed Receiver-General of Stamps and Taxes, and was High Constable of Lewes in 1745 and 1764. He married Ann, daughter of Dr William Brett of Lewes, and his wife Ann Apsley, by whom they had at least six children.

£300

Henry Neele was born in London and joined a firm of solicitors, whilst devoting his spare time to literature and poetry. In March 1823, a few months before this silhouette was taken, his Poems Dramatic and Miscellaneous was published, which attracted much interest, making him a popular contributor to magazines and annuals. Following the large amount of work he devoted in 1827 to producing a collected edition of his poems in two volumes, and his Romance of English History in three volumes, he committed suicide in February 1828 at his home in Castle Street, Marylebone. (ODNB)

William O'Hara can be found in various Cork directories from the 1820s to 1840s trading as a bookseller, stationer and printer. His friend Daniel O'Connell is the famous Irish nationalist leader, who campaigned for Catholic emancipation and for the repeal of the Union between Ireland and Great Britain.

£400

Mary Anne was one of five children of Sir William Foulis, 7th Bt. and Mary Anne of  Ingleby Manor, Yorkshire. In 1822 she married  Sir Tatton Sykes (1772-1863), 4th Bt., landowner and racehorse breeder, who  succeeded to the baronetcy following the death of his elder brother in 1823, whereupon they moved to Sledmere, near Malton, Yorkshire. They had two sons and six daughters, but while Sir Tatton was outwardly a respected and popular figure, his family knew him as a brutal figure, who ruled over them ‘with the vicious rage of a stone-age tyrant’.  (ODNB)

£300

John Wilcox was the son of Thomas Wilcox and Elizabeth Cartwright of Gloucester. He entered Pembroke College, Oxford, becoming MA in 1803. He became rector of Little Stoneham, Suffolk, and afterwards minister of Ely Chapel, a part of St. Etheldreda's Church, located in Ely Place, off Charterhouse Street, Holborn, London. In 1822 he was chaplain to the Earl of Kingston, in his last years was minister of the Episcopal Chapel, Broad Court, Drury Lane, London.

The maker of this wax portrait  was Edward William Wyon (1811-1885), a famous sculptor who exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy  from 1831 to 1876. This is an early piece of work of Wyon's, given that his sitter died in 1835. He went on to produce  many portrait busts and received numerous commissions from Wedgwood.