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Lot Essay
This dashing portrait of the young Harry Peckham once formed part of a group of six exceptional works, collectively known as The Markeaton Hunt Portraits, commissioned in circa 1762-63 by Francis Mundy (for whose portrait from the series please see the following lot). The sitters, who all had close associations with the patron, are presented in their distinctive and unifying hunt liveries of scarlet waistcoats, yellow nankeen breeches and royal blue velvet coats. The portraits hung at Markeaton Hall on the outskirts of Derby, which Mundy had recently inherited, from the early 1760s until their sale at Christie’s in 1936, when they were bought by a descendant of Mundy’s and remained together until their final dispersal at a Christie’s auction in 1975. The two portraits of Peckham and Mundy were acquired together at that sale and have formed pendant portraits ever since. They featured, with two other portraits from the series (of Nicholas Heath and Edward Becher Leacroft), in the seminal Wright exhibition in 1990 that toured London (Tate Britain), Paris (Grand Palais) and New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), which is the last time they were seen in public. These paintings signal a turning point in Wright’s early career when he transformed from a provincial portrait painter working in the manner of his master, Thomas Hudson, into one of the most talented and original artists of his age in England.
There was an established tradition in Britain for series of 'non-family' portraits, from Sir Peter Lely's Flag Captains and Windsor Beauties in the late 17th century, to Sir Godfrey Kneller's Kit-Cat Club and George Knapton's Dilettante Society portraits in the first half of the 18th century. The direct inspiration for a visual record of friendship in the case of the Markeaton series almost certainly came from the existence of a group of portraits of five Oxford friends that Arthur Devis had executed in circa 1749, one of the sitters being Francis Mundy’s father, Wrightson Mundy. The Markeaton Hunt, to which all six men belonged, may have been Francis Mundy’s own creation, constituting a small pack of hounds which he invited friends to follow and for which he designed the hunt livery, since it is not mentioned in the chapter on ‘Sport’ in the Victoria County History of the County of Derbyshire (1907), which dates the first printed record of hunting in Derbyshire to the 1790s.
The six sitters shared more than a passion for hunting: Nicholas Heath (fig. 1) may have been at school with Francis Mundy and later married his sister, Mary; Francis Burdett (fig. 2) came from an old Derbyshire family, was a cousin of Francis Mundy and became his brother-in-law when Mundy married his sister, Elizabeth; Edward Becher Leacroft (fig. 3), also from Derbyshire, shared Mundy’s love of poetry and lived for some years at Markeaton Hall; while Launcelot Rolleston (fig. 4) was a cousin of both Mundy and Burdett. Harry Peckham, the son of the Vicar of Amberley in Sussex, met Francis Mundy when he entered New College, Oxford, in 1759 and the two became firm friends. Peckham may still have been an undergraduate when he sat to Wright for this portrait in circa 1762. After graduating from Oxford, Peckham enjoyed a distinguished career as a lawyer: called to the Bar in 1768, he became a King’s Counsel and Middle Temple Bencher, and was appointed Recorder of Chichester in 1782. Tragically, he died following a fall while out hunting in 1787, and was buried in the Temple Church.
Wright has varied the sitters’ stances to add interest and rhythm to the group, and devised that they complement one another while also holding their own as standalone portraits. They exhibit an informality and directness, and an understanding and mastery of the subtle deployment of light to define form that is not present in his earlier portraits. This portrait of Peckham demonstrates Wright's newfound powers at rendering the human form and physiognomy, and his skill at meticulously observing details of costume and contrasting textures: from the crisp white handkerchief billowing out of Peckham’s left hand, to the intricately rendered buttons and folds in the sitter’s scarlet waistcoat and the wonderfully scruffy coat of the attendant terrier. The picturesque crumbling wall to the right echoes and reinforces Peckham’s stature.
Wright was extremely particular about the framing of his paintings, and Paul Mitchell undertook a study at the time of the 1990 Wright exhibition of the Rococo, Carlo Maratta and Neo-Classical frames in which the artist chose to present his works. A commission of this scale and importance demanded a unique framing solution and all six pictures were framed en suite in exceptional rococo frames, likely executed by Huguenot craftsmen, of which Mitchell declared: 'Surviving examples of papier-mâché frames are extremely rare and there can be few finer than those made for Wright's Markeaton Hunt group’ ('Wright's Picture Frames', in Wright of Derby, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1990, p. 275).
The Markeaton Hunt Portraits immediately preceded Wright’s candlelight paintings of the mid-1760s which established his reputation as one of the most pioneering and talented artists of his era and were the focus of the recent Wright of Derby: From the Shadows exhibition at the National Gallery, London. Nicolson remarked of this decisive moment in the artist’s early career: ‘this is the crucial date in Wright’s career when he came into his own; when he first discerned his power, his originality and a sense of direction, and set off, inspired, on a new course … [he] swung into the highway of achievement, and the excitement mounts as we strive to keep pace with him’ (op. cit., p. 29).
There was an established tradition in Britain for series of 'non-family' portraits, from Sir Peter Lely's Flag Captains and Windsor Beauties in the late 17th century, to Sir Godfrey Kneller's Kit-Cat Club and George Knapton's Dilettante Society portraits in the first half of the 18th century. The direct inspiration for a visual record of friendship in the case of the Markeaton series almost certainly came from the existence of a group of portraits of five Oxford friends that Arthur Devis had executed in circa 1749, one of the sitters being Francis Mundy’s father, Wrightson Mundy. The Markeaton Hunt, to which all six men belonged, may have been Francis Mundy’s own creation, constituting a small pack of hounds which he invited friends to follow and for which he designed the hunt livery, since it is not mentioned in the chapter on ‘Sport’ in the Victoria County History of the County of Derbyshire (1907), which dates the first printed record of hunting in Derbyshire to the 1790s.
The six sitters shared more than a passion for hunting: Nicholas Heath (fig. 1) may have been at school with Francis Mundy and later married his sister, Mary; Francis Burdett (fig. 2) came from an old Derbyshire family, was a cousin of Francis Mundy and became his brother-in-law when Mundy married his sister, Elizabeth; Edward Becher Leacroft (fig. 3), also from Derbyshire, shared Mundy’s love of poetry and lived for some years at Markeaton Hall; while Launcelot Rolleston (fig. 4) was a cousin of both Mundy and Burdett. Harry Peckham, the son of the Vicar of Amberley in Sussex, met Francis Mundy when he entered New College, Oxford, in 1759 and the two became firm friends. Peckham may still have been an undergraduate when he sat to Wright for this portrait in circa 1762. After graduating from Oxford, Peckham enjoyed a distinguished career as a lawyer: called to the Bar in 1768, he became a King’s Counsel and Middle Temple Bencher, and was appointed Recorder of Chichester in 1782. Tragically, he died following a fall while out hunting in 1787, and was buried in the Temple Church.
Wright has varied the sitters’ stances to add interest and rhythm to the group, and devised that they complement one another while also holding their own as standalone portraits. They exhibit an informality and directness, and an understanding and mastery of the subtle deployment of light to define form that is not present in his earlier portraits. This portrait of Peckham demonstrates Wright's newfound powers at rendering the human form and physiognomy, and his skill at meticulously observing details of costume and contrasting textures: from the crisp white handkerchief billowing out of Peckham’s left hand, to the intricately rendered buttons and folds in the sitter’s scarlet waistcoat and the wonderfully scruffy coat of the attendant terrier. The picturesque crumbling wall to the right echoes and reinforces Peckham’s stature.
Wright was extremely particular about the framing of his paintings, and Paul Mitchell undertook a study at the time of the 1990 Wright exhibition of the Rococo, Carlo Maratta and Neo-Classical frames in which the artist chose to present his works. A commission of this scale and importance demanded a unique framing solution and all six pictures were framed en suite in exceptional rococo frames, likely executed by Huguenot craftsmen, of which Mitchell declared: 'Surviving examples of papier-mâché frames are extremely rare and there can be few finer than those made for Wright's Markeaton Hunt group’ ('Wright's Picture Frames', in Wright of Derby, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1990, p. 275).
The Markeaton Hunt Portraits immediately preceded Wright’s candlelight paintings of the mid-1760s which established his reputation as one of the most pioneering and talented artists of his era and were the focus of the recent Wright of Derby: From the Shadows exhibition at the National Gallery, London. Nicolson remarked of this decisive moment in the artist’s early career: ‘this is the crucial date in Wright’s career when he came into his own; when he first discerned his power, his originality and a sense of direction, and set off, inspired, on a new course … [he] swung into the highway of achievement, and the excitement mounts as we strive to keep pace with him’ (op. cit., p. 29).