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Lot Essay
This portrait of John Murray by Angelica Kauffman, one of the leading and most accomplished female artists active in eighteenth century Europe, is a fine example of her male portraiture. The sitter is depicted wearing blue 'van Dyck' costume and holding a black plumed hat. The wearing of 'van Dyck' costume by sitters became common in British portrait painting from the 1730s onwards. Masquerades had been introduced into England by the Swiss Count Heidegger in about 1710, and they remained a popular source of entertainment for all ranks of society throughout the eighteenth century. This costume was derived from that worn by sitters in van Dyck's paintings, such as the double portraits of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Lord Francis Villiers (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) and George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol and William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford (Althorp, Northants). Although worn predominantly at fancy dress balls or masquerades, 'van Dyck' costume became a fashionable way for sitters to be depicted in portraits and was taken up by a variety of artists ranging from Thomas Hudson to Thomas Gainsborough (eg.The Blue Boy, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino). Other instances of Kauffman portraying sitters wearing this costume include a drawing of Benjamin West, 1763 (National Portrait Gallery, London); and portraits in oil of Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon, 1774 (sold, Christies's, London 14 July 1939, lot 117); Edmund Bastard, 1775 (Saltram House, Devon); and Thomas Noel-Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick, 1793 (Attingham Park, Shropshire).
The precise identity of the sitter in the present portrait currently remains elusive. No members of the Murray family are recorded in an incomplete list of her works compiled by the artist (published in Lady Victoria Manner and G.C. Williamson, Angelica Kauffmann, R.A. Her Life and her Works, London, 1924). However, there are a number of possible candidates, including John Murray of Strowan, Perth (1729-74), a kinsman of the Duke of Atholl who was educated at Göttingen University; and John Murray of Philiphaugh (1726-1800), a landowner and barrister who comissioned in 1768 from Robert Adam, a series of designs for a villa that was never built due to his poor financial situation. The latter was painted by Allan Ramsay in 1749 (present whereabouts unknown; see A. Smart, Allan Ramsay, New Haven and London, 1999, p. 163, no. 392). Another contender is John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809), the last Colonial Governor of Virginia who was painted at full-length by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1765 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; see D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, New Havenand London, 2000, p. 347, no. 1316). Another John Murray (c. 1714-75), the notorious British resident in Venice, appears to be too old for the sitter in the present portrait, although he had a firm connection to Kauffman who visited Venice in October 1765 and was taken to London by Murray's wife, Bridget, where they arrived on 22 June 1766.
Angelica Kauffman was born in Chur, Switzerland and trained under her father, Joseph Johann Kauffman, as well as receiving academic training in various North Italian cities and latterly in Florence and Rome. During this period in Italy she became acquainted with several artists whose work define early Neo-classicism including Benjamin West, Pompeo Batoni, Nathaniel Dance and Gavin Hamilton. Also significant for her developing interest in the classical past was her friendship with the German antiquarian and scholar Johann J. Winckelmann, whose portrait she painted in Rome. Her arrival in London in 1766 was at a propitious moment. During the early years of the reign of King George III London was second only to Rome as the artistic centre of Neo-classicism. West and Dance were already there, having preceded Kauffman from Rome, and Joshua Reynolds provided a theoretical voice and social respectability for contemporary art in the Grand Manner. It was largely Reynolds's example that gave rise to the establishment in 1768 of the Royal Academy of Art. Kauffman's rapid emergence as a leading painter in London may be deduced from her selection as one of its founder-members, one of only two women to be so honoured (the other was Mary Moser).
Kauffman's first years in London were largely occupied with painting portraits, always the most lucrative branch of her career. The founding of the Academy and the establishing of its annual exhibitions prompted her return to history painting, and at the first Royal Academy exhibition, in 1769, her Hector and Andromache and Venus Showing Aeneas and Achates the Way to Carthage (both Saltram House, Devon) were singled out for special praise. In subsequent years she showed subject pictures of consistently innovative iconography, ranging from contemporary German literature (Samma the Demoniac, from Friedrich Klopstock's Messiah; R.A. 1770) to classical antiquity (Cleopatra Adorning the Tomb of Marc Antony; R.A. 1770). Her Vortigern and Rowena (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1770; Saltram House, Devon) inaugurated a taste for national history that would remain alive in British art throughout the nineteenth century.
Kauffman, of all the artists working in London during the later eighteenth century, came as close as any to fulfilling Reynolds's doctrines concerning history painting. However, neither she nor those of her contemporaries (Benjamin West, James Barry and Henry Fuseli, to name but three) who wished to bring history painting to prominence in Great Britain succeeded; English patrons steadfastly maintained their preference for portraits. Without a steady market for history paintings, Kauffman had to earn the greater part of her substantial income from portraits. Most of her sitters were female; many were allegorized in the manner of Reynolds to raise them closer to the status of history paintings. The Marchioness Townshend and her Son (Burghley House), for example, are shown as Venus and Cupid, while Frances Hoare (Stourhead) has a sacrificial offering to a statue of Minerva.
Kauffman also produced numerous designs for decorative paintings set into the walls and ceilings of Neo-classical interiors. Her name is particularly associated with houses designed by Robert Adam, and, although she herself did not paint many of the numerous panels ascribed to her, she was certainly prominent in evolving a gentle, pliant version of Neo-classicism as an appropriate complement to these domestic interiors. Her most famous decorative project was, however, for a semi-public building, the Royal Academy at Somerset House. In 1778-80 Kauffman painted four allegorical ovals for the ceiling of the lecture hall of the academys new rooms, designed by William Chambers. These ovals, representing Colour, Design, Composition and Genius, are now in the vestibule of Burlington House, London, the Royal Academy's home from 1869.
Although a label on the reverse of the present work states that the exceptionally fine Neo-classical frame, which appears to retain its original gilding, was 'carved to the order of the painter by the Bros. Adam', there is no direct evidence to suggest the frame was designed by Robert Adam. Although Adam and Kauffman did work occasionally for the same projects and patrons, such as at Saltram for John Parker, the working connection between the two has historically been over-emphasised. Furthermore, although the Neo-classical frame follows the 'Roman' fashion which the Adams did so much to promote, it relates more closely to designs known to have been executed by the Linnell brothers. With its wreathes of palms, pearls and poetic laurels together with a ribbon-band of antique flutes enriched with flowered paterae, it bears close resemblance to frames designed in the mid 1770s by the Berkeley Square firm of William and John Linnell (see H. Hayward, The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Furniture History, 1969). A frame, similarly enriched with palms and pearls, bears the label adopted in the late 1780s by Richard Harding of Soho, 'Carver and Gilder' to George III (see C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, figs 469-70).
We are grateful to Wendy Wassyng Roworth for confirming the attribution to Kauffman and dating the painting to circa 1770 from a colour transparency.
The precise identity of the sitter in the present portrait currently remains elusive. No members of the Murray family are recorded in an incomplete list of her works compiled by the artist (published in Lady Victoria Manner and G.C. Williamson, Angelica Kauffmann, R.A. Her Life and her Works, London, 1924). However, there are a number of possible candidates, including John Murray of Strowan, Perth (1729-74), a kinsman of the Duke of Atholl who was educated at Göttingen University; and John Murray of Philiphaugh (1726-1800), a landowner and barrister who comissioned in 1768 from Robert Adam, a series of designs for a villa that was never built due to his poor financial situation. The latter was painted by Allan Ramsay in 1749 (present whereabouts unknown; see A. Smart, Allan Ramsay, New Haven and London, 1999, p. 163, no. 392). Another contender is John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809), the last Colonial Governor of Virginia who was painted at full-length by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1765 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; see D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, New Havenand London, 2000, p. 347, no. 1316). Another John Murray (c. 1714-75), the notorious British resident in Venice, appears to be too old for the sitter in the present portrait, although he had a firm connection to Kauffman who visited Venice in October 1765 and was taken to London by Murray's wife, Bridget, where they arrived on 22 June 1766.
Angelica Kauffman was born in Chur, Switzerland and trained under her father, Joseph Johann Kauffman, as well as receiving academic training in various North Italian cities and latterly in Florence and Rome. During this period in Italy she became acquainted with several artists whose work define early Neo-classicism including Benjamin West, Pompeo Batoni, Nathaniel Dance and Gavin Hamilton. Also significant for her developing interest in the classical past was her friendship with the German antiquarian and scholar Johann J. Winckelmann, whose portrait she painted in Rome. Her arrival in London in 1766 was at a propitious moment. During the early years of the reign of King George III London was second only to Rome as the artistic centre of Neo-classicism. West and Dance were already there, having preceded Kauffman from Rome, and Joshua Reynolds provided a theoretical voice and social respectability for contemporary art in the Grand Manner. It was largely Reynolds's example that gave rise to the establishment in 1768 of the Royal Academy of Art. Kauffman's rapid emergence as a leading painter in London may be deduced from her selection as one of its founder-members, one of only two women to be so honoured (the other was Mary Moser).
Kauffman's first years in London were largely occupied with painting portraits, always the most lucrative branch of her career. The founding of the Academy and the establishing of its annual exhibitions prompted her return to history painting, and at the first Royal Academy exhibition, in 1769, her Hector and Andromache and Venus Showing Aeneas and Achates the Way to Carthage (both Saltram House, Devon) were singled out for special praise. In subsequent years she showed subject pictures of consistently innovative iconography, ranging from contemporary German literature (Samma the Demoniac, from Friedrich Klopstock's Messiah; R.A. 1770) to classical antiquity (Cleopatra Adorning the Tomb of Marc Antony; R.A. 1770). Her Vortigern and Rowena (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1770; Saltram House, Devon) inaugurated a taste for national history that would remain alive in British art throughout the nineteenth century.
Kauffman, of all the artists working in London during the later eighteenth century, came as close as any to fulfilling Reynolds's doctrines concerning history painting. However, neither she nor those of her contemporaries (Benjamin West, James Barry and Henry Fuseli, to name but three) who wished to bring history painting to prominence in Great Britain succeeded; English patrons steadfastly maintained their preference for portraits. Without a steady market for history paintings, Kauffman had to earn the greater part of her substantial income from portraits. Most of her sitters were female; many were allegorized in the manner of Reynolds to raise them closer to the status of history paintings. The Marchioness Townshend and her Son (Burghley House), for example, are shown as Venus and Cupid, while Frances Hoare (Stourhead) has a sacrificial offering to a statue of Minerva.
Kauffman also produced numerous designs for decorative paintings set into the walls and ceilings of Neo-classical interiors. Her name is particularly associated with houses designed by Robert Adam, and, although she herself did not paint many of the numerous panels ascribed to her, she was certainly prominent in evolving a gentle, pliant version of Neo-classicism as an appropriate complement to these domestic interiors. Her most famous decorative project was, however, for a semi-public building, the Royal Academy at Somerset House. In 1778-80 Kauffman painted four allegorical ovals for the ceiling of the lecture hall of the academys new rooms, designed by William Chambers. These ovals, representing Colour, Design, Composition and Genius, are now in the vestibule of Burlington House, London, the Royal Academy's home from 1869.
Although a label on the reverse of the present work states that the exceptionally fine Neo-classical frame, which appears to retain its original gilding, was 'carved to the order of the painter by the Bros. Adam', there is no direct evidence to suggest the frame was designed by Robert Adam. Although Adam and Kauffman did work occasionally for the same projects and patrons, such as at Saltram for John Parker, the working connection between the two has historically been over-emphasised. Furthermore, although the Neo-classical frame follows the 'Roman' fashion which the Adams did so much to promote, it relates more closely to designs known to have been executed by the Linnell brothers. With its wreathes of palms, pearls and poetic laurels together with a ribbon-band of antique flutes enriched with flowered paterae, it bears close resemblance to frames designed in the mid 1770s by the Berkeley Square firm of William and John Linnell (see H. Hayward, The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Furniture History, 1969). A frame, similarly enriched with palms and pearls, bears the label adopted in the late 1780s by Richard Harding of Soho, 'Carver and Gilder' to George III (see C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, figs 469-70).
We are grateful to Wendy Wassyng Roworth for confirming the attribution to Kauffman and dating the painting to circa 1770 from a colour transparency.