Lot Essay
Ranelagh Barrett, or Barwick, was the leading English copyist of his generation. The main source of information on his activities is George Vertue, notebook V, post 1742: 'he by this particular of Coppying justly, especially in Colouring gaind (sic) him the reputation which got the Favour of Sr. Robt. Walpole - who gave him leave constantly to be in a room at his house which became a well situated office for Barret, who had much busines (sic) and employment there, for persons of Quality &c and others. so long as Sr. Robt livd (sic) in the treasury office' (George Vertue, Notebooks, III, The Walpole Society, XXII, 1934, p. 112).
Of the twenty-one copies listed by Vertue in the notebook in question as 'Capital for drawing or Colouring', eight were after originals in Walpole's collection: Teniers' The Dutch Kitchen, the Moses striking the Rock and Scipio Africanus of Poussin, Rubens' Portrait of his Wife and Portrait of Frans Snyders and his Family, van Dyck's Inigo Jones, Maratta's Clement IX and a Guido Madonna. Other collections represented included those of the King, the Dukes of Grafton, Devonshire and Newcastle, Lord Oxford and Dr. Mead. In a subsequent notebook of 1745-6, Vertue recorded that Barrett 'artfully leaves' a copy of van Dyck's Kenelm Digby at the houses of 'persons of Quality' 'to be shown or seen by their Friends which never fails of procureing (sic) him business & reputation' (ibid., p. 131). Subsequently Vertue noted a copy after John Michael Wright executed for Lord Foley (ibid., V, p. 51). Walpole's younger son Horace, well aware of Barrett's debt to his father, recorded a number of additional works by him, including, for example, copies of the Sherborne Procession of Queen Elizabeth and Batoni's early 6th Lord Digby at Redlynch (Horace Walpole's Journals of Visits to Country Seats, &c, ed. Paget Toynbee, The Walpole Society, XVI, 1928, p. 44).
Barrett's carreer serves as a reminder that copies were not regarded with disdain in the eighteenth century. Artists of such eminence as Batoni accepted commissions for copies, while both Reynolds and Gainsborough executed copies of distinction.
The present picture is a copy of one by Wootton originally in the Hunting Hall at Houghton and sold by the 3rd Earl of Orford to Catherine the Great in 1779. While other works by Wootton painted for Sir Robert Walpole and similarly sold by his grandson are now in the Hermitage, the prototype of the present picture, although presumed to be in Russia, has not been traced; an engraving of it by Richard Earlom was published by Boydell in 1780 (A. Meyer, catalogue of the exhibition, John Wootton, The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, London, 1984, pp. 80-1, no. 61, illustrated)
Of the twenty-one copies listed by Vertue in the notebook in question as 'Capital for drawing or Colouring', eight were after originals in Walpole's collection: Teniers' The Dutch Kitchen, the Moses striking the Rock and Scipio Africanus of Poussin, Rubens' Portrait of his Wife and Portrait of Frans Snyders and his Family, van Dyck's Inigo Jones, Maratta's Clement IX and a Guido Madonna. Other collections represented included those of the King, the Dukes of Grafton, Devonshire and Newcastle, Lord Oxford and Dr. Mead. In a subsequent notebook of 1745-6, Vertue recorded that Barrett 'artfully leaves' a copy of van Dyck's Kenelm Digby at the houses of 'persons of Quality' 'to be shown or seen by their Friends which never fails of procureing (sic) him business & reputation' (ibid., p. 131). Subsequently Vertue noted a copy after John Michael Wright executed for Lord Foley (ibid., V, p. 51). Walpole's younger son Horace, well aware of Barrett's debt to his father, recorded a number of additional works by him, including, for example, copies of the Sherborne Procession of Queen Elizabeth and Batoni's early 6th Lord Digby at Redlynch (Horace Walpole's Journals of Visits to Country Seats, &c, ed. Paget Toynbee, The Walpole Society, XVI, 1928, p. 44).
Barrett's carreer serves as a reminder that copies were not regarded with disdain in the eighteenth century. Artists of such eminence as Batoni accepted commissions for copies, while both Reynolds and Gainsborough executed copies of distinction.
The present picture is a copy of one by Wootton originally in the Hunting Hall at Houghton and sold by the 3rd Earl of Orford to Catherine the Great in 1779. While other works by Wootton painted for Sir Robert Walpole and similarly sold by his grandson are now in the Hermitage, the prototype of the present picture, although presumed to be in Russia, has not been traced; an engraving of it by Richard Earlom was published by Boydell in 1780 (A. Meyer, catalogue of the exhibition, John Wootton, The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, London, 1984, pp. 80-1, no. 61, illustrated)