.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This picture, painted in 1725-26, is one of Wootton's earliest portraits of Sir Robert Walpole, the man who dominated British politics from 1721 until his resignation in 1742, and whose patronage greatly strengthened the artist's reputation as the pre-eminent painter of sporting and landscape subjects in England during the first half of the eighteenth century.
Although Walpole commissioned a considerable number of pictures from Wootton including portraits of himself, the present work is the only recorded composition by the artist that depicts Britain's first Prime Minister as a Knight of the Bath, an Order created in 1725 by George I, and one that Walpole relinquished in June of the following year on being appointed a Knight of the Garter. In this picture the attitude of the protagonist corresponds closely to the portraits Wootton later painted, in conjunction with Jonathan Richardson, of Walpole as Ranger of Richmond Park, all of which show the sitter wearing the Garter; the three key versions are at Wolterton Hall, Melbury House, and Houghton Hall.
Walpole's patronage of Wootton extended over a considerable period. The 1736 inventory of his collection records a total of seventeen paintings by the artist at his Houghton, Downing Street and Grosvenor Street residences and further commissions after this date seem highly probable (see A. Meyer, John Wootton 1682-1764, Landscapes and sporting art in early Georgian England, exhibition catalogue, London, 1984, p. 45, under no. 16). That Wootton's landscapes were the only works in this genre by an English artist to hang in the principal apartments at Downing Street is evidence of the high regard in which he was held. Several sporting subjects are listed in the 1736 inventory, including Two Dogs at Downing Street, White Hound at Grosvenor Street, and a work entitled Hounds and a Magpie (now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg) that hung over the chimney in the Small Breakfast Room at Houghton and was later sold to Catharine the Great in 1779, along with almost two hundred pictures from the house, by the 3rd Earl of Orford, Walpole's grandson and heir.
It was at the beginning of the 1720s that Walpole set about rebuilding the family home at Houghton, which he required both to receive and entertain guests, and to act as a country retreat for his family. From 1726, large parties of house guests composed of Walpole's chief political intimates within his administration, courtiers, bishops, foreign ambassadors and local squires, met every summer and November for what Lord Hervey described as 'Hunting Congress'. Hervey noted how these days were spent 'dedicated to foxhunters, hospitality, noise, dirt and business' (J. Hervey, Lord Hervey and his Friends, ed. Earl of Ilchester, London, 1950, p. 71). With hunting such a central part of these gatherings - when Sir Thomas Robinson stayed at Houghton in 1731, the party hunted six days a week - Walpole decided to demolish the old stables in 1732 and employed William Kent, who by then was already working on the interiors of the house, to design the existing stables.
7 December 1951
In the evening at Ampthill Mr. King (the local builder) here to hang my new picture of Sir Robert Walpole in the Morning Room.
Professor Sir Albert Richardson, P.R.A.
Although Walpole commissioned a considerable number of pictures from Wootton including portraits of himself, the present work is the only recorded composition by the artist that depicts Britain's first Prime Minister as a Knight of the Bath, an Order created in 1725 by George I, and one that Walpole relinquished in June of the following year on being appointed a Knight of the Garter. In this picture the attitude of the protagonist corresponds closely to the portraits Wootton later painted, in conjunction with Jonathan Richardson, of Walpole as Ranger of Richmond Park, all of which show the sitter wearing the Garter; the three key versions are at Wolterton Hall, Melbury House, and Houghton Hall.
Walpole's patronage of Wootton extended over a considerable period. The 1736 inventory of his collection records a total of seventeen paintings by the artist at his Houghton, Downing Street and Grosvenor Street residences and further commissions after this date seem highly probable (see A. Meyer, John Wootton 1682-1764, Landscapes and sporting art in early Georgian England, exhibition catalogue, London, 1984, p. 45, under no. 16). That Wootton's landscapes were the only works in this genre by an English artist to hang in the principal apartments at Downing Street is evidence of the high regard in which he was held. Several sporting subjects are listed in the 1736 inventory, including Two Dogs at Downing Street, White Hound at Grosvenor Street, and a work entitled Hounds and a Magpie (now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg) that hung over the chimney in the Small Breakfast Room at Houghton and was later sold to Catharine the Great in 1779, along with almost two hundred pictures from the house, by the 3rd Earl of Orford, Walpole's grandson and heir.
It was at the beginning of the 1720s that Walpole set about rebuilding the family home at Houghton, which he required both to receive and entertain guests, and to act as a country retreat for his family. From 1726, large parties of house guests composed of Walpole's chief political intimates within his administration, courtiers, bishops, foreign ambassadors and local squires, met every summer and November for what Lord Hervey described as 'Hunting Congress'. Hervey noted how these days were spent 'dedicated to foxhunters, hospitality, noise, dirt and business' (J. Hervey, Lord Hervey and his Friends, ed. Earl of Ilchester, London, 1950, p. 71). With hunting such a central part of these gatherings - when Sir Thomas Robinson stayed at Houghton in 1731, the party hunted six days a week - Walpole decided to demolish the old stables in 1732 and employed William Kent, who by then was already working on the interiors of the house, to design the existing stables.
7 December 1951
In the evening at Ampthill Mr. King (the local builder) here to hang my new picture of Sir Robert Walpole in the Morning Room.
Professor Sir Albert Richardson, P.R.A.