Portrait of an architect and his patron

Born in Little Urswick, near Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, James Cranke initially worked as a plasterer before his career as a portrait painter. In circa 1737 Cranke moved to London, where he attended St. Martin Lane's Academy, and remained in the capital until 1752, when ill health forced him to return to Cumbria. Virtue's observation, in 1746, that a portrait by the artist was 'painted strongly... and at least as well as any one living' attests to the success Cranke achieved during this period. A notably fine work by the artist is his full-length portrait of the bookseller Thomas Osborne, painted in 1747 and now in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. The present portrait presumably dates to his years in London, during which he fully absorbed the style of Thomas Hudson, the leading portraitist of the day, whose students included the young Joshua Reynolds and Joseph Wright of Derby. While the identity of the two sitters in this highly engaging double portrait remains elusive, it would appear to show an architect and his patron. The former's headgear is comparable to that worn by the artist in his self-portrait, painted in circa 1751 and now in The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.