The Family Collection of the late Countess Mountbatten of Burma

John Singleton Copley, R.A.

The Knatchbull Family Portrait

Auction Closed

March 24, 08:41 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

John Singleton Copley, R.A.

Boston 1738 - 1815 London

The Knatchbull Family Portrait

oil on canvas

65 x 95.4 cm.

Acquired from the artist's studio;
Probably John Cleland, 1888;
Probably G.T. Taylor, 1903;
Sale, United States, 1922;
Where purchased by Cecil Knatchbull-Hugessen, 4th Baron Brabourne (1863-1933), Mersham le Hatch, Kent;
Thence by descent.

Probably F. Bayley, The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley, Boston 1915, pp. 271-72 ('"A Family Group" measuring twenty-four by thirty-six was exhibited at Birmingham, England, belonging to G.T. Taylor. There was shown a group of portraits in monochrome measuring twenty-four by thirty-six and one-half inches at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1888, belonging to Mr. John Cleland.’);
Catalogue of Portraits, 1920, no. 84;
H.B. Wehle, An Exhibition of Paintings by John Singleton Copley, exh. cat., New York 1936, cat. no. 46;
J.T. Flexner, John Singleton Copley, Boston 1948, pp. 103-06, and 129, reproduced pl. 32;
J.D. Prown, John Singleton Copley 1738-1815, exh. cat., Washington, D.C. 1965, pp. 125 and 142, cat. no. 100, reproduced p. 130, fig. 100;
J.D. Prown, John Singleton Copley in England 1744-1815, Washington, D.C. 1966, p. 363 and 424, reproduced fig. 639.

This important work is the preliminary oil sketch for the large family group portrait that John Singleton Copley, R.A. painted in 1800-03. The project was one of his most ambitious and controversial, executed towards the very last years of his career. Copley was commissioned by the widower Sir Edward Knatchbull to paint a portrait of him with his ten children. The artist was already at work on the large canvas when Sir Edward married his third wife, Mary Hawkins, and insisted that the composition be altered to include his new young bride, and, before long, more room had to be made on the canvas for an anticipated baby. Copley’s composition was further complicated when Sir Edward decided that he’d like his first two wives also to be included in some way. Copley chose to incorporate the women as angels floating in the upper right corner of the canvas. This feature attracted reports of derision, and as a result Sir Edward decided it would not to be exhibited or engraved. The large canvas was eventually divided into a series of separate portraits as offered here (see lot 171). The separate portraits of Mary Knatchbull (d. 1843) playing a tambourine (see Fig. 1) and Sir Edward (seen here are on the far right) are in a private collection.

This sketch is the only surviving record of the original composition of the larger canvas.