Arthur Devis* (1708-1787)

Portrait of Richard Bull (1721-1805), small full length, leaning on a balustrade with a formal garden and rotunda beyond

Details

Arthur Devis* (1708-1787)
Portrait of Richard Bull (1721-1805), small full length, leaning on a balustrade with a formal garden and rotunda beyond
signed and dated 'ADevis fe 1746.' [AD linked]
oil on canvas
24.1/8 x 16in. (61.3 x 42cm.)

Provenance

By descent from the sitter to Miss Levina Bennett, Northcourt, Shorwell, Isle of Wight (according to an old label on the reverse).
with Richard Green, London, from whom purchased by the present owner in 1973.

Exhibited

New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, The English Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis and his contemporaries, Oct. 1-Nov. 30, 1980, no. 18, loaned by the present owner.

Lot Essay

Richard Bull, the son of Sir John Bull of Chipping Ongar, was a scholar at Westminster, Lincoln's Inn and Trinity College, Cambridge from where he graduated in 1744 before going into his father's profession as a turkey merchant. He was appointed Member of Parliament for Newport, Cornwall in June 1746, a position he held until September 1780 when he moved to Northcourt, Shorewell, Isle of Wight. In May 1747 he married a widow, Mary Bennett and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Caroline. He was survived by one of his daughters who died some months after her father leaving Northcourt to her half-sister, Levina Bennett.