THOMAS FORSTER (c. 1677-1712)

Major-General James Crofts, facing right in gilt-studded armour and white shirt, full bottomed curling wig

Details

THOMAS FORSTER (c. 1677-1712)
Major-General James Crofts, facing right in gilt-studded armour and white shirt, full bottomed curling wig
signed and dated 'T. Forster delin 1707' (lower right)
plumbago on vellum
oval, 46 in. (106 mm.) high, silver-gilt mount

Provenance

Paulton Collection.
Francis Wellesley, no. 185; Sotheby's, London, 28 June - 2 July 1920, lot 344.
with Blumenthal, London.

Literature

J. J. Foster, Samuel Cooper & the English Miniature Painters of the XVII Century, London, 1914-1916, Supplement, p. 114, no. 10.
R. W. Goulding, The Welbeck Abbey Miniatures, Oxford, 1916, p. 28.
Catalogue of the Miniatures and Portraits in Plumbago or Pencil belonging to Francis & Minnie Wellesley, Woking/London, n.d., pp. 51-52.
C. F. Bell/R. Poole, 'English Seventeenth-Century Portrait Drawings in Oxford Collections', The Walpole Society, XIV, 1926, p. 77.

Exhibited

Brussels, Hôtel Goffinet, Exposition de la Miniature, 1912, no. 361 (lent by Francis Wellesley).
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1914-1917, special catalogue, illustrated pl. 5 (lent by Wellesley).
Manchester, Miniature Exhibition, 1926.

Lot Essay

Major-General James Crofts was one of the six illegitimate children of James, Duke of Monmouth, himself the natural son of Charles II and Lucy Walters, and Eleanor, daughter of Sir Robert Needham. The name Crofts was adopted as his father had been entrusted to the care of Lord Crofts following his mother's death. James's brother, Captain Charles Crofts, made a significant mark in Boston, Massachusetts; at the time of his demise in 1702 it was recorded: 'For Debauchery and Irreligion he was one of the vilest Men that has set foot in Boston.'

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