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Lot Essay
This striking portrait of the artist with his son is a studio version of Isaac Fuller’s marvellously idiosyncratic picture, dated to circa 1670, in the National Portrait Gallery, London. That the present canvas was executed alongside Fuller’s original is confirmed by an X-ray of the latter, which reveals the boy’s right hand touching the cast below his father’s, a passage visible in the present work but subsequently painted over by the artist in the Portrait Gallery version. A third version of the same composition is at Queen's College, Oxford. The dating of the aforementioned works is based on a variant showing the artist without his son and holding a sketch in his right hand, which is signed and dated 1670 (Oxford, Bodleian Libraries). A related drawing in pen, bistre and ink, is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), in which Fuller shows himself, bust-length in a sculpted oval, a format repeated in oil for the version in the Musée de la Chase et de la Nature, Paris.
A controversial figure and a notorious drunkard, Fuller's reputation was somewhat undermined by his bohemian lifestyle, but his few extant works demonstrate the undoubted talent of this mercurial artist. Fuller's date of birth is the subject of some debate among scholars but according to Bainbrigg Buckeridge (writing in 1704), he is thought to have trained in Paris with the French painter François Perrier. In the early 1660s, he was active in Oxford where he decorated the chapels at Magdalen and All Souls Colleges. These works are now lost but the diarist John Evelyn wrote that the artist's fresco at All Souls would not survive long, being 'too full of nakeds'. Fuller painted a series of large panels representing the escape of King Charles II after the Battle of Worcester. These works, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, are thought to have been owned by Henry Cary, 4th Viscount Falkland (1634-1663), who was in the party that escorted Charles II back to England before his coronation. Fuller ended his career by painting decorative schemes (all now lost) for numerous London taverns, of which it is said he was an habitué. Sir Peter Lely lamented 'that so great an artist should besot or neglect so great a genius' (Vertue, Note books, 1.126). Horace Walpole, who was witheringly critical of Fuller’s history painting, praised the artist’s portraits, in which 'his pencil was bold strong and masterly'. This portrait shows one of the artist's two sons, Isaac (fl. 1678–1709) or Nicholas, both of whom became painters.
A controversial figure and a notorious drunkard, Fuller's reputation was somewhat undermined by his bohemian lifestyle, but his few extant works demonstrate the undoubted talent of this mercurial artist. Fuller's date of birth is the subject of some debate among scholars but according to Bainbrigg Buckeridge (writing in 1704), he is thought to have trained in Paris with the French painter François Perrier. In the early 1660s, he was active in Oxford where he decorated the chapels at Magdalen and All Souls Colleges. These works are now lost but the diarist John Evelyn wrote that the artist's fresco at All Souls would not survive long, being 'too full of nakeds'. Fuller painted a series of large panels representing the escape of King Charles II after the Battle of Worcester. These works, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, are thought to have been owned by Henry Cary, 4th Viscount Falkland (1634-1663), who was in the party that escorted Charles II back to England before his coronation. Fuller ended his career by painting decorative schemes (all now lost) for numerous London taverns, of which it is said he was an habitué. Sir Peter Lely lamented 'that so great an artist should besot or neglect so great a genius' (Vertue, Note books, 1.126). Horace Walpole, who was witheringly critical of Fuller’s history painting, praised the artist’s portraits, in which 'his pencil was bold strong and masterly'. This portrait shows one of the artist's two sons, Isaac (fl. 1678–1709) or Nicholas, both of whom became painters.