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Lot Essay
Robert Stearne Tighe was the eldest son of Stearne Tighe (d.1762), Member of Parliament for Athy, in Ireland, and his wife Arabella, daughter of Sir John Osbourne, Bt., of Newtown, co. Tipperary. The Tighe family were originally from Rutland but the sitter's great-grandfather Robert Tighe had settled in Ireland in the reign of King Charles II where he had married Miss Stearne, the sister of General Stearne and also of Dr. Stearne, Lord Bishop of Clogher. The sitter's grandfather, who was also called Robert (1682-1766), acquired the estates of Mitchellstown, Castle Delvin, and Scurlogstown, as well as other lands in co. Westmeath, from his kinsman Richard Tighe, which the sitter inherited from him in 1766, his own father having died four years earlier.
Robert Stearne Tighe is shown here with his wife Catherine, only daughter of Colonel Hugh Morgan of Cottelstown, co. Sligo, and of Cork Abbey, co. Wicklow. The Tighes travelled to Italy in 1785, shortly after their marriage. They spent the winter of that year in Naples, where they are recorded as being among the companions of Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Piozzi, who were there between November 1785 and February 1786, and sometime before 1 April the following year they went to Rome, where this portrait was painted, before returning to Ireland.
The commission for the portrait is recorded in the artist's Memorandum of Paintings, which she kept while in Italy, under an entry for June 1786:
'For Madame Morgan of Ireland, the two portraits in one single picture of Mr. and Mrs. Tighe - full-length figures of about 18 inches - Mr. Tighe's wife is Mrs. Morgan's daughter - 160 Zecchini half of the sum was paid in June when the above went away, the remaining half 80 Zecchini to be paid on delivery of the picture paid for on 18th July. 1788. by the Bank of Mr. Jenkin's.'
(Lady V. Manners and Dr. C.G. Williamson, op. cit., p. 151)
Mrs. Tighe had previously sat to Kauffmann for a double portrait as a young girl together with her mother Mrs Hugh Morgan when the artist was in Ireland in 1771 (now in the Art Institute of Chicago). The present portrait is similar in composition to Kauffmann's later portrait of the influential antiquary, dealer and painter Thomas Jenkins (1722-98) and his wife of 1790 (National Portrait Gallery, London; B. Baumgärtel, in the catalogue of the exhibition Angelika Kauffmann, Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, 1999, pp. 308-9, no. 167).
We are grateful to Dr. B. Baumgärtel for confirming the attribution having inspected the painting in person.
Robert Stearne Tighe is shown here with his wife Catherine, only daughter of Colonel Hugh Morgan of Cottelstown, co. Sligo, and of Cork Abbey, co. Wicklow. The Tighes travelled to Italy in 1785, shortly after their marriage. They spent the winter of that year in Naples, where they are recorded as being among the companions of Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Piozzi, who were there between November 1785 and February 1786, and sometime before 1 April the following year they went to Rome, where this portrait was painted, before returning to Ireland.
The commission for the portrait is recorded in the artist's Memorandum of Paintings, which she kept while in Italy, under an entry for June 1786:
'For Madame Morgan of Ireland, the two portraits in one single picture of Mr. and Mrs. Tighe - full-length figures of about 18 inches - Mr. Tighe's wife is Mrs. Morgan's daughter - 160 Zecchini half of the sum was paid in June when the above went away, the remaining half 80 Zecchini to be paid on delivery of the picture paid for on 18th July. 1788. by the Bank of Mr. Jenkin's.'
(Lady V. Manners and Dr. C.G. Williamson, op. cit., p. 151)
Mrs. Tighe had previously sat to Kauffmann for a double portrait as a young girl together with her mother Mrs Hugh Morgan when the artist was in Ireland in 1771 (now in the Art Institute of Chicago). The present portrait is similar in composition to Kauffmann's later portrait of the influential antiquary, dealer and painter Thomas Jenkins (1722-98) and his wife of 1790 (National Portrait Gallery, London; B. Baumgärtel, in the catalogue of the exhibition Angelika Kauffmann, Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, 1999, pp. 308-9, no. 167).
We are grateful to Dr. B. Baumgärtel for confirming the attribution having inspected the painting in person.