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All lots are sold framed unless indicated otherwise. Property from the Loyd Collection. Lots 1 - 20. The Loyd Collection was founded by Samuel Jones Loyd (1796-1883), who was created Baron Overstone of Overstone and Fotheringhay in 1850. He was Liberal Member of Parliament for Hythe from 1819-1826 and Chairman of the banking house of Jones, Loyd and Co. Overstone was widely recognised as an outstanding collector and lover of the arts. He began collecting in the 1830s and the primary interest of the collection was Old Master Paintings - Italian and Dutch and he acquired many major works, which have subsequently found their way into National Collections including Rembrandt's Margaretha Trip (National Gallery), Claude's The Enchanted Castle (National Gallery) and two panels from the wings of Cranach's St Catherine altarpiece of 1506 (National Gallery). However his taste was broad and he also purchased contemporary pictures such as a work by Sir Augustus Wall Callcott (1779-1844) and Clarkson Stanfield's (1793-1867) Castle of Ischia. His first Turner, bought in 1875, was View of the High Street, Oxford. He was appointed Trustee of the National Gallery in 1850 and was a commissioner for the Great Exhibition, 1851. In 1861 he sat on the Lord's Committee to consider the Turner and Vernon bequests, which recommended that Turner's gift should be hung in the National Gallery. Dr Waagen's account of the Overstone Collection was published in 1857 and leaves a clear impression of how the pictures were displayed in No. 2 Carlton Gardens. Some of the pictures would subsequently find their way to Lockinge. His only daughter Harriet, married Major Robert Lindsay V.C., whose elder brother Sir Coutts Lindsay was proprietor of the Grosvenor Gallery. Robert Lindsay was created Lord Wantage in 1885. Lord and Lady Wantage built with great discrimination on the collection her father had built, including pictures from the English School such as Burne-Jones's Temperantia and Caritas, Gainsborough's Lady Eardley with her Daughters and Turner's Sheerness as seen from the Nore and Walton Bridges. Lord Wantage died in 1901 and Lady Wantage in 1920, leaving her collection of Indian miniatures of the Moghul period to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The collection at No. 2 Carlton Gardens passed to her husband's great nephew, the 27th Earl of Crawford, while Lockinge and Overstone were inherited by her cousin A.T. Loyd. A.T. Loyd made a number of purchases in the interwar years including a large number of the English drawings in the collection. He also presented five outstanding Victorian pictures to Bradfield School. A catalogue of the collection, The Loyd Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures, 1967, was compiled by Leslie Parris; a revised edition with an introduction by Francis Russell was issued in 1991.

Jonathan Richardson, Sen. (1665-1745)

Portrait of John Milton (1608-1674), bust-length

Details

Jonathan Richardson, Sen. (1665-1745)
Portrait of John Milton (1608-1674), bust-length
dated '5 Dec 1734' (on the reverse) and with inscription '1803 WE Pst... Milton' (on the reverse in the hand of William Esdaile)
black lead on vellum
4 5/8 x 3½ in. (11.8 x 8.9 cm.)

Provenance

Jonathan Richardson, Jun. (L. 2170).
William Esdaile, 1803 (L. 2617).
Dr. C.G. Williamson (L. 2578).
J. King, Wantage, from whom purchased by the present owner.

Literature

F. Russell, The Loyd Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures, 1991, no. 117B, p. 44, pl. 57.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Richardson and his son published Explanatory Notes on Paradise Lost... with a life of the author, in 1734. The likeness is based on the portrait engraved by William Faithorne, a drawing related to which is in the Princeton University Library. The association with Milton was clearly important to Richardson and he painted a group portrait of himself, his son and Milton together (private collection). There are also two engravings, presumably after the present drawing, in the Heinz Archive, one showing the poet adorned with laurel and with inscription '... J.R: sen: f. MILTON's Mansus. From an Excel.t Orig: (Crayons) in his Collection.'

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