Old Master Paintings and Portrait Miniatures
Old Master Paintings and Portrait Miniatures
Property from a Private Collection
James Northcote R.A.
Portrait of Charlotte Leycester, full-length, wearing a white dress and holding a duckling
Lot Closed
April 28, 03:13 PM GMT
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Private Collection
James Northcote R.A.
Plymouth 1746 - 1831 London
Portrait of Charlotte Leycester, full-length, wearing a white dress and holding a duckling
signed and dated lower left: J.S.Northcote / pinx.st 1803
oil on canvas
unframed: 144.1 x 112 cm.; 56¾ x 44⅛ in.
framed: 171.9 x 140.7 cm.; 67¾ x 55⅜ in.
With Julian Simon Fine Art, London;
From whom acquired on 18 March 1999, by the present owner.
S. Gwynn, Memorials of an eighteenth century painter (James Northcote), London 1898, no. 385;
D. Hall, 'The Tabley House Papers', in The Walpole Society, vol. XXXVIII, 1962, pp. 85 and 117, no. 55 ('Portrait of Miss C. Leycester a child whole length' – £31–10s.');
J. Simon, 'The Account Book of James Northcote', in The Walpole Society, vol. LVIII, 1995/1996, p. 76, no. 404 ('Miss Charlotte Leicester half length for Sir John').
Charlotte Leycester was the daughter of Ralph Leycester MP (1763–1835), of Toft Hall, in Cheshire. Northcote painted portraits of other members of the family for Sir John Leicester to hang at Tabley House, Knutsford, Cheshire, including one of Ralph Leycester, executed in 1801, which is still at Tabley.1
Sir John Leicester (1762–1827), who was created Lord de Tabley in the year before he died, was a notable patron of contemporary British art. He made the Grand Tour in 1785–86, but - highly singularly - he brought back no paintings, either old or new, those that he had seen having inspired a desire in him to support and acquire the art of his own countrymen.