John Michael Wright 1617-1694

Estimate

18,000 - 24,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

John Michael Wright
Portrait of Mr Thomas Sydserff (B.1624)
inscribed with the identity of the sitter
oil on canvas, in a carved wood frame

three-quarter length, wearing a striped coat, holding a walking cane

Provenance

The Earl of Rothes, and by family descent, at Leslie House, to Norman Evelyn Leslie, 19th Earl of Rothes, by whose executors sold to Major Sir Robert Spencer-Nairn, Bt., by whom given to the present owners in 1953

Exhibited

Edinburgh, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, John Michael Wright, The King's Painter, 16th July-19th September 1982, no.25

Literature

Stuart Maxwell and Robin Hutchinson, Scottish Costume 1550-1850, 1958, p.69

Catalogue Note

The sitter was the son of Thomas Sydserff (1581-1663), who had supported the episcopacy in Scotland, and found favour at the Restoration, being made Bishop of Orkney in 1662. Sydserff wrote a number of plays, including Tarugo's Wiles or The Coffee House (1668), and is thought to have managed a company of comedians in a theatre in Edinburgh's Canongate. In 1661, he also compiled Mercurius Caledonius, the first newspaper to be printed in Scotland. The style of the sitter's costume, discussed in Maxwell and Hutchinson (op. cit.), dates the picture to circa 1670.