OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
From the National Gallery we have selected two: a portrait of Mrs. Mark Currie and the portrait called The Parson's Daughter.
Mrs. Mark Currie represents a life-size, nearly full-length figure. The lady is dressed in a simple white muslin dress with short sleeves, and an elaborate fichu of the same material. Round her waist is a silk sash of pale red, and the ribbons which trim her sleeves and fichu are of the same pale tint. Her fair hair, slightly powdered, falls in full clusters around her shapely shoulders.
Her face wears a quiet thoughtful expression, with a lurking look of humour about the eyes. The background is slightly suggested landscape and trees.
The lady was a Miss Elizabeth Close, who married Mr. Mark Currie, a goldsmith and banker, in January, 1789, and gave her first sitting for the portrait on the 7th of May of the same year.
MRS. MARK CURRIE.
It is not known whom The Parson's Daughter represents, nor why it bears that name.
It is a very charming circular portrait of a young lady with dark eyes and auburn hair, which is powdered and bound with a green ribbon. She wears a brown dress and white handkerchief.
The modelling on the face is very dexterously painted, and the tender thoughtful expression of the dark eyes quite beautiful.
The hair is painted in very broad, powerful fashion, and the draperies over the bust indicated lightly and put on with a wonderful sliding movement which is notable. On the whole Romney seldom did a more pleasing piece of work than the portrait of this quiet and refined dainty girl.
The Clavering Children, which we have the special permission of the owner (Rev. J. W. Napier-Clavering) to reproduce, is a very happy example of Romney's ability to depict children in movement and to give the effect of rapid motion.
Mark how lightly the two children tread the ground, with what easy step they move forward, seeming to come right out of the canvas towards the spectator. Notice how the scarf, which forms part of the dress of the girl, streams out in the wind, and see how lightly and with what a graceful movement the lad holds in the two dogs.
Romney was at his very best in this delightful group. The faces of both boy and girl are painted with unusual care, the clear eyes of the manly lad seeming to look right into the spectator; while the downcast lids of the girl's face serve but to reveal through their clear semi-transparency the brown eyes which they hide.
Much attention has in this work been given to the hands, which Romney rightly believed were indicative of character. The grasp of the sturdy fingers of the boy contrasts well with the long slender fingers which grasp the dog in loving embrace, and the same pleasing idea of divergence can be seen in the modelling of the faces and in the posture and shape of the feet. The dogs are painted in very natural positions: the darker spaniel, which is leaping up to the lad, is evidently in a favourite posture and full of enthusiasm towards his young master; while the tiny puppy which the girl hugs to her breast, and which the parent dog is most anxious to have back again into her care, is a fat little comic beast, quite young, and very ready to be caressed.
THOMAS JOHN CLAVERING, AFTERWARDS EIGHTH
BARONET, AND HIS SISTER, CATHERINE MARY.
The scene has no studio atmosphere about it. It was clearly unpremeditated, and has been happily seized by the artist at the right moment and perpetuated in this work. There is no elaborate underpainting in this picture, all the effects of it being obtained in the simplest manner. The sky and ground afford a sufficient foil in the way of scenery, and the two children come dancing towards the person who looks at the picture with the most artless grace and charm, attended as they are by their canine companions.
The boy was afterwards Sir Thomas John Clavering, the eighth baronet, of Axwell Park, where the family still reside, and was the grand-son of the sixth baronet, Sir James. He was born in 1771, married in 1791, succeeded his uncle in the family estates and title, and died in 1853. His sister, Catherine Mary, died unmarried in 1785.
The picture is a large one, as the figures are life-size, and it has been engraved; and hardly any of the works of Romney is more worthy of praise than this vivacious and graceful creation.
The wonderful eyes which distinguished the features of Lady Hamilton can be well appreciated in the portrait which we give from the National Portrait Gallery. The face is not altogether a pleasing one. It reveals some of the desire to fascinate which distinguished the lady's character.
There is a purpose in the gaze which these eyes extend to the observer, and the attitude, although intended to be a natural one, is quite evidently studied and assumed. It is intended to give full play to the face and eyes, and to reveal the graceful curves of the arms and the slender beauty of the fingers. The very roundness of the face is accentuated against the angles of the fingers in their half-closed position, and there is a studied grace in the arrangement of the draperies and in the muslin bands which form the head-dress. In all these respects it is a fitting representation of the famous beauty, who in a less natural pose would not have so amply revealed her power of charm.
The painting of the features with all their delicate and slight modelling is a triumphant success, and the eyes, which burn down into the very consciousness of the spectator, are superbly represented. The picture, small as it is, and showing but little of the graceful form, is yet a masterpiece, and is a delineation of character unsurpassed in its effect by any other portrait by the same hand.
There is in the Wallace Gallery an interesting Portrait of Mrs. Robinson, the beautiful actress, in the character of Perdita, the daughter of Leontes in "The Winter's Tale," which she made so peculiarly her own.
Mrs. Robinson first took the part in the performance on December 3rd, 1779, at Drury Lane, in the presence of their Majesties King George III. and Queen Charlotte, and also before the youthful Prince of Wales, whose affection was afterwards to have such an effect upon her life.
She was at that time just over twenty-one years old, married to a man who systematically insulted and neglected her and spent his time with the lowest and most degraded of the women of his acquaintance. The Prince of Wales was in his eighteenth year, very susceptible, and he was at once attracted by this lovely woman, little more than a girl, who acted superbly and with such artless grace. In this way an acquaintance was commenced, Viscount Malden being employed as an intermediary, and ripened into a closer affection.
She, however, hardly met the Prince until he had his separate establishment in Buckingham House, as during the time when he lived at Kew he was kept under the strictest regulations. From the 1st of January, 1781, he was, however, his own master, and Mrs. Robinson shared his establishment, and was at the height of her beauty and position.
The attachment only continued for some two years, when the Prince, having vowed perpetual devotion to his Perdita, and made her many presents and more promises, suddenly transferred his affection to Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott and absented himself from Mrs. Robinson.
He paid no attention to her misery, nor in any way assisted her in her distress, though he had given her a bond for £20,000 when she quitted the theatre at his desire to live with him. She eventually, however, obtained, through Charles James Fox, an annuity of £500 a year, and devoted herself to literature.
She had a very devoted daughter who lived with her, and in the presence of this daughter she died in December, 1800, and was buried at Old Windsor by her own particular desire.
In the picture in the Wallace Gallery she is represented in the walking costume which she assumed when she played the part of Perdita, wearing a handsome lace bonnet and carrying a huge muff. The face is one of peculiar sweetness, and the eyes have an arch look, mingled with thoughtful pathos, which is peculiarly attractive.
The face is wonderfully painted, the modelling being subtle and very dexterous; while the harmony of the whole work is most noticeable. The picture is one of Romney's most successful works in its charm of colour and sweetness of expression.
The remaining three of our illustrations are taken from the gallery of the Duke of Sutherland at Trentham, and are reproduced by kind permission of their noble owner, and of his Grace's representative, Mr. Bagguley.
The chief of the three is the important portrait group of Children dancing in a Ring, one of the most famous groups that Romney ever executed. The tall lady with the tambourine is Lady Anne Leveson-Gower, third daughter of the Earl Gower who afterwards became first Marquess of Stafford, by his second wife, Lady Louisa Egerton. She became eventually the wife of Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of York.
The four dancing children are her step-sisters and step-brother, the children of the earl by his third wife, Lady Susan Stewart—the Ladies Georgiana, Charlotte, and Susan Leveson-Gower, who became respectively Lady G. Eliot, the Duchess of Beaufort, and the Countess of Harrowby. The young lad is Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, afterwards elevated to the peerage as the first Earl Granville, the father of the late well-known statesman of the same name.
The picture is a charming example of the skill of the artist, both in expressing lightness and grace in attitude, and also in power of grouping and composition. The children are moving with the utmost daintiness and freedom, and are all of them admirably well drawn.
The tall figure is, if anything, a little too tall, but adds dignity to the group, while the artless expression on the faces of the girls is beyond praise. There is a peculiar sweetness and happiness in the faces of all the little ones, and they are evidently in full enjoyment of health and spirits, and have no feeling of formal grouping or stilted posing about them.
GEORGE GRANVILLE, SECOND MARQUESS OF STAFFORD
AND FIRST DUKE OF SUTHERLAND.
The colour scheme is delightful. The white dress of the tall sister and of the boy, with the same hue in the columns, is charmingly contrasted with the green, plum colour and red of the other dresses, and with the increase of colour that the scarves of brown and purple give. All is harmony and grace without artifice, and the technique of the picture is of the very simplest order.
As an example of dignity and restraint, the Portrait of George Granville will be appreciated. He was the eldest son of the same Earl Gower who afterwards in his turn became second Marquess of Stafford and then first Duke of Sutherland. He was, of course, the brother of the tall girl with the tambourine in the last picture.
By his marriage with the lady who was Countess of Sutherland in her own right, he became a person of vast importance and the owner of enormous estates, which he managed admirably and laid the foundation for the position now occupied by his successors.
He stands quietly before the spectator, dressed in a yellow silk jacket with deep lace collar and cuffs, has a red robe thrown over his shoulders, and bears in his hand his gray hat with black feathers.
It is well to mark the extreme care with which the hand of the young aristocrat is painted, and how expressive it is—perhaps as much as the serious and somewhat haughty face—of the position and influence of the lad.
There is a composure and a stateliness in this portrait which are a sure index to the mind of the young nobleman, and few painters could so well have represented the mind of his sitter as Romney has done in this work. The child was assuredly father to the man, and thus early he foreshadowed in his features the calm dignity, reserve and power which in after life distinguished him as Duke.
The third portrait is that of his wife, generally known as the Countess-Duchess of Sutherland.
Elizabeth was the only daughter and surviving child of the seventeenth and last Earl of Sutherland, and became, on the death of her father, Countess in her own right. Her mother was a great beauty, and she inherited all the exquisite features and charm of that parent, who died in the same year as the Earl of Sutherland, placing this bright girl, at the tender age of two years, in possession of the vast estates and the title of the earldom. Her beauty attracted the loyalty of all her tenants to her, and Sir Walter Scott records many a story of her charm and kindness.
The portrait records her appearance soon after she was married, when somewhat more than twenty years of age, and in the heyday of her sweet and thoughtful beauty. She is dressed in white and gold, her dark brown hair tied with ribbon, the background being foliage and a distant landscape.
There is all the effect of power, dignity and determination about the mouth and eyes; the face is a distinct oval, the form rather thin and slight, and the composure of the expression very marked. It is a striking portrait of a beautiful girl of high lineage and important position, and is a triumph of art as a portrait which is at once lovely in itself and a delineation of the mind of the person who is depicted in it.