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拍品专文
Born in Preston, Lancashire, Arthur Devis studied under the sporting and topographical artist Peter Tillemans (1684-1734). By 1742 he was described in the Preston guild as 'of London, Painter', and he steadily developed a reputation as a meticulously accomplished portraitist in the conversation piece genre.
The present work shows the sitter in a particularly sparse interior, and is unusual in its inclusion of two portraits, probably of the same woman, from the front and in profile, unframed and unhung, perched informally on a chair and along the dado rail behind. The gentleman, seated at a small table, his left hand resting on a book, contemplates the portraits, which seem likely to commemorate either his wife or possibly a daughter. It is possible that the sitter is a member of the Bissé family, of whom several portraits from the period descended to Cecil Fane de Salis of Henley-on-Thames, and were sold alongside the present work at Christie's on 11 March 1932, including a Highmore portrait of Mrs Bissé, and two Romneys of Thomas Bissé and his wife. Thomas Challoner Bissé (1788-1862), of Portnall Park, Lieutenant Colonel Commandant of the 4th Royal Regiment of Surrey Local Militia, married in January 1859 Henrietta Maria, daughter of Jerome, Count de Salis. Thomas died without issue in 1862, leaving Portnall Park to his wife's brother, the Rev. Henry Jerome Augustine Fane de Salis.
The present work shows the sitter in a particularly sparse interior, and is unusual in its inclusion of two portraits, probably of the same woman, from the front and in profile, unframed and unhung, perched informally on a chair and along the dado rail behind. The gentleman, seated at a small table, his left hand resting on a book, contemplates the portraits, which seem likely to commemorate either his wife or possibly a daughter. It is possible that the sitter is a member of the Bissé family, of whom several portraits from the period descended to Cecil Fane de Salis of Henley-on-Thames, and were sold alongside the present work at Christie's on 11 March 1932, including a Highmore portrait of Mrs Bissé, and two Romneys of Thomas Bissé and his wife. Thomas Challoner Bissé (1788-1862), of Portnall Park, Lieutenant Colonel Commandant of the 4th Royal Regiment of Surrey Local Militia, married in January 1859 Henrietta Maria, daughter of Jerome, Count de Salis. Thomas died without issue in 1862, leaving Portnall Park to his wife's brother, the Rev. Henry Jerome Augustine Fane de Salis.