European and British Art, Part II

European and British Art, Part II

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 144. Portrait of Alfred Baldwin, Esq..

Property from the Baldwin Family

Sir Edward John Poynter, Bt., P.R.A., R.W.S.

Portrait of Alfred Baldwin, Esq.

Lot Closed

July 13, 02:42 PM GMT

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Baldwin Family

Sir Edward John Poynter, Bt., P.R.A., R.W.S.

British

1836 - 1919

Portrait of Alfred Baldwin, Esq.


signed with monogram and dated 1878 centre right

oil on canvas

Unframed: 66.5 by 54cm., 26 by 21¼in.

Framed: 96 by 83cm., 37¾ by 32¾in.

Commissioned by the sitter and thence by descent to the present owner
London, Royal Academy, 1879, no. 199
The Worcestershire industrialist and politician Alfred Baldwin (1841-1908) was Edward Poynter’s brother-in-law and also a supportive friend, who bought several pictures from the young artist. Poynter and Baldwin married two of the remarkable MacDonald sisters, Louisa and Agnes, on the same morning in August 1866 at the fifteenth century church of St Peter in Wolverhampton. It was a small wedding as the Reverend George MacDonald, the father of the brides was unwell and stayed at home with his wife nursing him and few of the Poynter family attended. Louisa and Agnes’ sister Georgiana, wife of Edward Burne-Jones, did not attend for reasons that are unclear, choosing to go on holiday instead. ‘Louie’ and ‘Aggie’ were devoted to one another and the severing of the sisters' bond when they married was a source of great anxiety for both of them, neither being of robust health. Neither of their marriages were blissfully happy as both husbands worked so hard that they had little time for their wives or children. In 1867 Louie gave birth to her son Stanley and it is said that after his birth the family cook took the new-born infant up three flights of stairs where she stood on a stool and held him aloft in the hope that he would rise high in the world (a Worcestershire superstition) – the child grew to become Prime Minister.