Master Paintings & Sculpture Part I
Master Paintings & Sculpture Part I
Property of a New York Collector
Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A.
Mr. and Mrs. William Chase, three-quarter length, in an interior by a window, the latter holding a bird
Auction Closed
January 28, 04:44 PM GMT
Estimate
300,000 - 500,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property of a New York Collector
Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A.
Derby 1734-1797
Mr. and Mrs. William Chase, three-quarter length, in an interior by a window, the latter holding a bird
inscribed lower left: Mr & Mrs Willm Chase/md 1760
oil on canvas
56 by 76 in.; 138.4 by 190.5 cm.
S. Brewin, by 1883;
Rev. Harington O. Shore;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 16 December 1911, lot 98;
There acquired by Sulley;
With Wertheimer;
With Agnew's, London, 1912;
Miss Faith Moor, 1917;
Viscount Lee of Fareham, by 1934;
Samuel Courtauld, by 1946;
By descent to Lord Butler, Gatcome Park, by 1968;
With Agnew's, London, by 1977;
There acquired by the present collector.
W. Bemrose, The Life of Joseph Wright, London and Derby 1885, pp. 118-119;
The Connoisseur, vol. XCIV, 1934, p. 322;
D. Cooper, The Courtauld Collection, London 1954, cat. no. 244, pp. 186-7;
B. Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, London 1968, vol. I, cat. no. 37, p. 2, 17, 23, 30-1, 39, 70, 156 under note 8, 189, reproduced vol. II, p. 28, pl. 50.;
J. Edgerton, Wright of Derby, exhibition catalogue, London 1990, cat. no. 13, p. 49, reproduced p. 48.
A. Barnes and S. Leach, "Mr. and Mrs. William Chase: An Allegory of Air by Joseph Wright", in The British Art Journal, Spring 2016, vol. 17, pp. 74-77.
Wright's sensational portrait of Mr. and Mrs. William Chase marks a turning point in the artist's approach to portraiture, and indeed a turning point in the development of the British conversation piece. Though little is known of Wright's sitter's, Mr. and Mrs. William Chase, the commission was clearly an important one for the artist. It is the largest picture painted by Wright to this point in his career when executed in circa 1762-1763. It anticipates a number of Wright’s most famous portrait masterpieces of the following decades, specifically in its highly refined and technically brilliant background design and ornamentation. Wright has here taken the effort to elaborate and expand the background design of the painting, a specific decision no doubt influenced by the likely importance of the commission at this early mature career moment. Rather than include a more standard and simple drapery framing device, Wright has here included a grand country house with Doric pillar, a richly folded curtain, red lacquer desk, and Rococo scrollwork on the wall.1 Judy Edgerton argued that the room portrayed here, possibly fictive, may have inspired Wright in his design of his later masterpiece An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, painted approximately four or five years’ following the present portrait. Specifically, variants of the sash window, draped curtains, and parrot in its domed wire cage all feature in some capacity in Wright’s later groundbreaking genre scene.
William Chase was likely a banker who inherited his father's business. Portrait's by Wright of the elder Chase with his wife are in the Yale University Art Gallery. Interestingly they are dated to roughly within a year of the present and grander group portrait.
1. See Literature, Edgerton 1990, p. 48.