After William Hogarth, circa 1739

Probably gifted by Gustavus Hamilton, 2nd Viscount Boyne (1710–1746), to Richard Child Tylney, Viscount Castlemaine and 1st Earl Tylney (1680–1750), Wanstead House, Essex, by October 1739;

Probably Gayer-Anderson Collection, Suffolk;

Probably Suffolk Building Preservation Trust;

Probably by whom sold ('The Property of the Suffolk Building Preservation Trust Ltd.'), London, Christie's South Kensington, 14 December 1983, lot 44 (as after William Hogharth);

Art market, London, 2007–2013;

Anonymous sale, Rome, Pirone Casa d'Aste, 16 December 2025, lot 43 (as English School, 19th century);

Where acquired by the present owner.

Probably S. Markjam, John Loveday of Caversham 1711-1789: The Life and Tours of An Eighteenth-Century Onlooker, Salisbury 1984, pp. 327 and 534 (as ''A Friar before a Crucifix' by Hogarth. Possibly a copy');

Probably E. Einberg, William Hogarth. A complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London 2016, pp. 125–26, under no. 69, reproduced in colour fig. 69.4 (as unknown artist after William Hogarth).

ENGRAVED

William Platt (c. 1775–after 1796).

This work is a highly accomplished reduced replica of William Hogarth's celebrated portrait of Sir Francis Dashwood at His Devotions, commissioned by Dashwood's boon companion, Gustavus Hamilton, 2nd Viscount Boyne (1710–1746).¹ It is known that Boyne was in the habit of giving reduced replicas of pictures in his collection to his friends, and it is plausible that the present work may be the very picture glimpsed by John Loveday during his visit to Wanstead House in October 1739.² The likely recipient of this copy was Richard Child Tylney, Viscount Castlemaine and 1st Earl Tylney (1680–1750), whose collection included Hogarth's Assembly at Wanstead House, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.³

In her catalogue raisonné of the artist's work, Elizabeth Einberg argues that William Platt's engraving of Dashwood's portrait was based on a reduced copy rather than on Hogarth's original.⁴ The very close relationship between the present work and Platt's engraving raises the tantalising possibility that it may have served as the model for Platt's print.⁵

In this famous portrait, Hogarth satirises Dashwood's (1708–1781) notorious reputation as a libertine. The traditional Italian iconography of Saint Francis of Assisi is parodied, and the customary crucifix of the saint's devotions is replaced with a figure of a naked Venus. The place of the Bible has similarly been taken by a notorious contemporary erotic novel, while the saint's skull has been replaced by a Venetian carnival mask. The 'halo' above Dashwood's head is thought by some to represent John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792), though it has also been interpreted as a depiction of the pagan god Pan.

We are grateful to Dr Brian Allen for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.

¹ Oil on canvas, 122 x 89 cm.; https://photoarchive.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/objects/425805/sir-francis-dashwood-at-his-devotions

² Markjam 1984, p. 327.

³ Inv. no. M1928-1-13; oil on canvas, 64.8 x 76.2 cm.; https://www.philamuseum.org/objects/103800

⁴ Einberg 2016, p. 126.

⁵ See for example the impression in the Wellcome Collection, London; https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vvcd2853/images?id=z7rmhfy8