Lot 74

Jonathan Richardson Senior was known as a great portrait painter and it was only during his retirement that he began drawing solely for personal pleasure. Differing from his interest in Old Master Drawings which he studied, collected, and admired academically, his own portraits of friends and family were much more an exercise in conviviality.Done neither as preparatory drawings for paintings nor as works to be sold, these portrait drawings are a testament to Richardson’s pleasure in creation for its own sake. They were made to be retained by the artist (and then his family after his death), or given as gifts to his friends. This lack of market constraint during his later years allowed Richardson to far surpass his technical training and meticulous academia, and instead be free to create purely for the joy of sharing his talent sociably as well as explore his own philosophical ideas through his drawings.The intimacy of Richardson’s drawn portraits and their strong personal connection to the artist can be seen through his choice of sitter; all portrayed subjects holding significant roles in the artist’s life. As well as close friends and family, he drew from earlier portraits of dead thinkers, philosophers and academics who he admired. As such we can use these portrait works not only as insights into the sitters’ lives but also as a reflection of the artist himself; the people he surrounded himself with, and the English Enlightenment ideals he revered and chose to commemorate.Though not all these intimate portraits were drawn ad vivum, they are no less touching or immediate for that. Even after his wife’s death in 1725 Richardson continued to draw her portrait from works completed while she was still alive. For Richardson it was the act of creation that was the declaration of devotion. As he explored in his respected art-theoretical writings, preserving the likeness of a person is what keeps their memory alive.

Jonathan Richardson, Sen. (London 1667-1745)

Portrait of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753)

Details

Jonathan Richardson, Sen. (London 1667-1745)
Portrait of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753)
graphite on vellum
5 5/8 x 4 in. (14.4 x 10.2 cm.)

Provenance

Jonathan Richardson, Jun. (1694-1771) (L. 2170).
M.H. Bloxam, by whom given to Rugby School Art Museum; with his inscriptions 'Sr. Hans Sloane' and 'Richardson del' (on the mount).

Literature

Anne Popham, typescript catalogue, no. 83.

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Lot Essay

Sir Hans Sloane was a doctor and traveller, and later president of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society. He was also a voracious collector across a wide range of fields, and an early instigator of the modern cataloguing system, working closely with Linnaeus. His collection was left to the nation and formed the basis of the British Museum. Richardson and Sloane were contemporaries, and the present drawing relates to a pen and ink study in the British Museum of Sloane wearing a nightcap, which is dated 10 September 1740 (1888,0619.90), and another graphite on vellum drawing at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. Susan Owens has written on Richardson's working methods (S. Owens, 'A note on Jonathan Richardson's working methods', The Burlington Magazine, CLVII, July 2015, pp. 457-459), and describes how the somewhat heavy-handed pen and ink studies (such as that in the British Museum) were taken from life, with the graphite on vellum sheets, such as the present drawing and the Yale study, worked up from the pen.

We are grateful to Susan Owens for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.

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