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Descriptif du lot
Philip Mercier was born in Berlin to Huguenot parents. According to George Vertue, he studied under Antoine Pesne and at the Berlin Royal Academy before travelling through Italy and France. Around 1716, he moved to London, where he spent of the remainder of his life. Mercier enjoyed royal patronage from Frederick, Prince of Wales, and, in 1729, was appointed as Principal Painter, Gentleman Page of the Bedchamber and Library Keeper. Although Mercier painted full-length royal portraits, he achieved greater success with his small group portraits of the prince’s family. These works helped popularise the ‘conversation piece’ - an informal type of small-scale group portrait inspired largely by the fêtes galantes of Antoine Watteau and by seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. Mercier is credited with having introduced the 'conversation piece' to English painting with his two small-scale group portraits of The Shultz Family and their friends on a terrace (1725; London, Tate Britain) and The Belton Conversation Piece (c. 1725-6; National Trust, Lincolnshire, Belton House).
Mercier’s royal favour did not last, and he was replaced as the Prince’s painter around 1736. The artist moved out of London and, in 1739, settled in York. He continued to paint portraits while expanding his repertoire to include ‘fancy pictures’, and a small group of candelight scenes. These reprised a theme popularised by seventeenth-century Dutch artists and, in turn, influenced the next generation of British painters, including Joseph Wright of Derby. John Ingamells and Robert Raines date Mercier's other candelight paintings to circa 1745-50 (see ‘A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Etchings of Philip Mercier’, The Walpole Society, XXXVI, 1976-8, nos. 139, 140 and 169). The woman depicted here is probably the same sitter who appears in several of his works from this period. A print in the British Museum, London, after Mercier's Portrait of a young woman holding a tea tray, engraved by John Faber the Younger is inscribed ‘Hannah – Mercier’s Maid’, providing evidence for her identification.
Mercier’s royal favour did not last, and he was replaced as the Prince’s painter around 1736. The artist moved out of London and, in 1739, settled in York. He continued to paint portraits while expanding his repertoire to include ‘fancy pictures’, and a small group of candelight scenes. These reprised a theme popularised by seventeenth-century Dutch artists and, in turn, influenced the next generation of British painters, including Joseph Wright of Derby. John Ingamells and Robert Raines date Mercier's other candelight paintings to circa 1745-50 (see ‘A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Etchings of Philip Mercier’, The Walpole Society, XXXVI, 1976-8, nos. 139, 140 and 169). The woman depicted here is probably the same sitter who appears in several of his works from this period. A print in the British Museum, London, after Mercier's Portrait of a young woman holding a tea tray, engraved by John Faber the Younger is inscribed ‘Hannah – Mercier’s Maid’, providing evidence for her identification.