Lot Essay
Though remaining continuously in the great collection of Stubbs's work commissioned by the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, this portrait has for many decades hung in obscurity, and has only very recently been recognised as Stubbs's work. Lord Rockingham himself thought sufficiently highly of it to hang it in the 'Antichamber' to his bedroom at Wentworth Woodhouse; and there, for many years, it hung in the company of one of the greatest of all the paintings in his collection, Van Dyck's famous double portrait of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford and his Secretary, Sir Philip Mainwaring (which remains in the family collection). Later he promoted the Van Dyck to the Dining Room at Wentworth, but Old Thomas Smith the Banksman continued to hang for the rest of Rockingham's life in the antichamber to his bedroom. There Arthur Young (op.cit.) saw it in 1768, on a visit to Wentworth:
'In his Lordship's anti-room hangs the famous picture of the Earl of Strafford, and his secretary, by Vandyke; and incomparably fine it is. Also the portrait of an old servant, By Stubbs, which appears to me most excellently done: The Strong expression on the face is worthy of the pencil of Rembrandt himself.'
The portrait was still hanging in the antichamber to Rockingham's bedroom when he died in 1782. It is listed among thirteen pictures 'In Lord Rockingham's Antichamber' in the subsequent inventory of Rockingham's possessions at Wentworth: Old Thomas Smith the Banksman 3/4 by Stubbs. In attempting to relate various documents in the Wentworth Woodhouse archives to Stubbs's work for Rockingham, L.F. Constantine (op.cit.) noted the reference in the 1782 Inventory to 'Old Thomas Smith the Banksman 3/4 by Stubbs', but could not identify this picture, either because it was by then obscurely placed or, perhaps, because he was looking for a picture of a man on a horse. Stubbs has for so long been labelled 'Mr Stubbs the Horse Painter' that a portrait of a man dressed, as Thomas Smith is, in sober livery and unaccompanied by a horse or any trappings suggestive of horses, may long ago have been ruled out as conceivably by Stubbs. Although Ozias Humphry (in his MS 'Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Stubbs') refers vaguely to portraits painted by Stubbs in the north of England, few examples are now known, apart from two early portraits in a private collection Sir Henry and Lady Nelthorpe (repr. Venetia Morrison, The Art of George Stubbs, 1989, pp. 11-12) and Sir John Nelthorpe, 6th Bt. as a Boy (J. Egerton, George Stubbs, Catalogue for the Exhibition at the Tate Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art, 1984, pl. 27), and James Stanley, dated 1755 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, see J. Egerton, op.cit., pl....)
A gift for perceptive portraiture, however, played from the start a significant if understated part in almost all Stubbs's paintings of jockies, grooms and hunt servants with horses. The degree of observation evident in Stubbs's single-minded concentration on the portrait of Thomas Smith is reflected, more incidentally, in his portraiture of (to take only a few examples) the jockey in Turf, with Jockey Up, at Newmarket (J. Egerton, op.cit., pl. 57), the hunt servant who turns to face us in Lord Torrington's Hunt Servants setting out from Southill (J. Egerton, op.cit., pl. 46), the Arabian groom in A Grey Horse with an Arabian Groom at Creswell Crags (J. Egerton, op.cit., pl. 71) and, on a different social level, the face of Sir Ralph Milbanke in The Milbanke and Melbourne Families (London, National Gallery). Later, Stubbs appears chiefly to have preferred the more durable (but less expressive) medium of enamel for single portraits; but his occasional portraits in oil on panel, such as that of Richard Wedgewood in old age, 1780 (Wedgewood Museum) reveal a degree of psychological understanding which equals (or nearly equals) that in the portrait of Thomas Smith, painted perhaps fifteen years earlier.
In this portrait Thomas Smith appears to be in his late sixties, and to wear the Wentworth household livery, suggesting that he is still in service. When he was born and for how long he had been employed by Lord Rockingham is not known. In describing him as 'Old Thomas Smith the Banksman', the 1782 inventory uses a now archaic word, then used to denote the supervisor (above ground, and usually mounted) of coal-mining operations. Thomas Smith was the banksman at Elsecar on the Wentworth estate, whose chief function at this time was to supply the vast quantities of coal needed for Wentworth Woodhouse itself and its lime-kilns, rather than for any outside market. His name recurs on the Elsecar pay-roll throughout 1755-7 (the only period for which accounts seemingly survive); he was paid £20 a year. It is almost certainly Thomas Smith who is portrayed in profile and on horseback in a smaller work painted by Stubbs for Rockingham and described in the 1782 inventory as the 'colliery picture' (to be published in a forthcoming note). Lord Rockingham's regard for Thomas Smith appears to have been of the same kind as his regard for his jockey, John Singleton; he recognised loyalty, character and Yorkshire grit when he encountered them.
'In his Lordship's anti-room hangs the famous picture of the Earl of Strafford, and his secretary, by Vandyke; and incomparably fine it is. Also the portrait of an old servant, By Stubbs, which appears to me most excellently done: The Strong expression on the face is worthy of the pencil of Rembrandt himself.'
The portrait was still hanging in the antichamber to Rockingham's bedroom when he died in 1782. It is listed among thirteen pictures 'In Lord Rockingham's Antichamber' in the subsequent inventory of Rockingham's possessions at Wentworth: Old Thomas Smith the Banksman 3/4 by Stubbs. In attempting to relate various documents in the Wentworth Woodhouse archives to Stubbs's work for Rockingham, L.F. Constantine (op.cit.) noted the reference in the 1782 Inventory to 'Old Thomas Smith the Banksman 3/4 by Stubbs', but could not identify this picture, either because it was by then obscurely placed or, perhaps, because he was looking for a picture of a man on a horse. Stubbs has for so long been labelled 'Mr Stubbs the Horse Painter' that a portrait of a man dressed, as Thomas Smith is, in sober livery and unaccompanied by a horse or any trappings suggestive of horses, may long ago have been ruled out as conceivably by Stubbs. Although Ozias Humphry (in his MS 'Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Stubbs') refers vaguely to portraits painted by Stubbs in the north of England, few examples are now known, apart from two early portraits in a private collection Sir Henry and Lady Nelthorpe (repr. Venetia Morrison, The Art of George Stubbs, 1989, pp. 11-12) and Sir John Nelthorpe, 6th Bt. as a Boy (J. Egerton, George Stubbs, Catalogue for the Exhibition at the Tate Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art, 1984, pl. 27), and James Stanley, dated 1755 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, see J. Egerton, op.cit., pl....)
A gift for perceptive portraiture, however, played from the start a significant if understated part in almost all Stubbs's paintings of jockies, grooms and hunt servants with horses. The degree of observation evident in Stubbs's single-minded concentration on the portrait of Thomas Smith is reflected, more incidentally, in his portraiture of (to take only a few examples) the jockey in Turf, with Jockey Up, at Newmarket (J. Egerton, op.cit., pl. 57), the hunt servant who turns to face us in Lord Torrington's Hunt Servants setting out from Southill (J. Egerton, op.cit., pl. 46), the Arabian groom in A Grey Horse with an Arabian Groom at Creswell Crags (J. Egerton, op.cit., pl. 71) and, on a different social level, the face of Sir Ralph Milbanke in The Milbanke and Melbourne Families (London, National Gallery). Later, Stubbs appears chiefly to have preferred the more durable (but less expressive) medium of enamel for single portraits; but his occasional portraits in oil on panel, such as that of Richard Wedgewood in old age, 1780 (Wedgewood Museum) reveal a degree of psychological understanding which equals (or nearly equals) that in the portrait of Thomas Smith, painted perhaps fifteen years earlier.
In this portrait Thomas Smith appears to be in his late sixties, and to wear the Wentworth household livery, suggesting that he is still in service. When he was born and for how long he had been employed by Lord Rockingham is not known. In describing him as 'Old Thomas Smith the Banksman', the 1782 inventory uses a now archaic word, then used to denote the supervisor (above ground, and usually mounted) of coal-mining operations. Thomas Smith was the banksman at Elsecar on the Wentworth estate, whose chief function at this time was to supply the vast quantities of coal needed for Wentworth Woodhouse itself and its lime-kilns, rather than for any outside market. His name recurs on the Elsecar pay-roll throughout 1755-7 (the only period for which accounts seemingly survive); he was paid £20 a year. It is almost certainly Thomas Smith who is portrayed in profile and on horseback in a smaller work painted by Stubbs for Rockingham and described in the 1782 inventory as the 'colliery picture' (to be published in a forthcoming note). Lord Rockingham's regard for Thomas Smith appears to have been of the same kind as his regard for his jockey, John Singleton; he recognised loyalty, character and Yorkshire grit when he encountered them.