THE THREE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES; FROM THE PAINTINGS BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS FOR THE WINDOW AT NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
¶ The group of paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds is unparalleled in any other collection public or private all the world over; both by the number and the excellence of the examples, it is absolutely unique, and it would be well-nigh impossible at the present day for even a multi-millionaire to bring together a rival gathering of this one painter’s productions. ¶ All through his career as a collector, Lord Normanton continued to acquire examples of Sir Joshua’s work, but his most important single purchase was made as early as 1821 at the sale of the pictures of the Marchioness of Thomond, held at Christie’s on May 18 and 19 of that year. The Marchioness of Thomond was no other than Mary Palmer, daughter of Sir Joshua’s elder sister, and sister to pretty ‘Offy’ Palmer, afterwards Mrs. Gwatkin, whom her uncle so often used as a model for his fancy pictures, notably for the Strawberry Girl. When Sir Joshua died in 1792, he left the bulk of his property to his niece, Mary Palmer; she inherited nearly £100,000 besides a number of pictures and other works of art; the same year she married the fifth Earl of Inchiquin, subsequently created Marquess of Thomond. After her death in 1821, her pictures were sold at Christie’s, and that occasion may be said to mark the foundation of the Normanton collection. Lady Thomond’s sale included, besides many works by old masters, a large number of pictures and sketches by her illustrious uncle; and here Lord Normanton secured for less than £3,000 the wonderful series of seven decorative panels which have ever remained the chief ornament of his collection, and for which in recent years fabulous sums have been offered and refused. They represent the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the four cardinal virtues, Temperance, Prudence, Justice, and Fortitude. They are the original designs executed by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the window at New College, Oxford, and afterwards copied on glass by Jarvis. Ever since his school days at Westminster, Lord Normanton had known and admired these pictures at Lady Thomond’s. On the day of the sale, in answer to a suggestion of the auctioneer that the entire set should be sold together, the company present, which included the Dukes of Devonshire and Northumberland, Lords Egremont, Grosvenor, Bridgewater, Fitzwilliam, Dudley and Ward, and Harewood, Sir Charles Long on behalf of the king, and many other well-known picture buyers, decided that the Virtues should be offered separately. The Charity was put up first, and its purchase at 1,100 guineas by Lord Normanton, then a young man, created no small sensation. Lord Dudley and Ward eagerly competed for the Fortitude, for which his mother had sat to Sir Joshua, but that as well as the other six succumbed to Lord Normanton’s bidding. Seven years later an offer of twice the purchase price was made for them on behalf of the king, and again some few years afterwards the National Gallery tried in vain to tempt Lord Normanton with three times the original sum. ¶ As to the designs themselves, it had been the painter’s original intention to make them drawings or cartoons; but he soon found it would be easier for him to paint them in oils, so long had he been used to the brush and the palette. ‘Jarvis, the painter on glass,’ he said, ‘will have a better original to copy, and I suppose persons hereafter may be found to purchase my paintings.’ In this he was, however, disappointed, since the Virtues were still in his possession at his death. ¶In a letter written about 1778, Sir Joshua details the general plan for the Oxford window. ‘Supposing this scheme to take place, my idea is to paint, in the great space in the centre, Christ in the Manger, on the principle that Correggio has done it, in the famous picture called the Notte; making all the light proceed from Christ. These tricks of the art, as they may be called, seem to be more properly adapted to glass-painting than any other kind. This middle space will be filled with the Virgin, Christ, Joseph and angels; the two smaller spaces on each side I shall fill with the shepherds coming to worship; and the seven divisions below with the figures of Faith, Hope, Charity and the four cardinal virtues; which will make a proper rustic base or foundation for the support of the Christian Religion....’ ¶ The large central picture of the Nativity, measuring ten feet by eighteen, was sold by the artist to the Duke of Rutland for the then unprecedented price of 1,200 guineas. It was unfortunately destroyed in the fire at Belvoir in 1816. A powerful sketch of this subject on a small scale is, however, to be found at Somerley. ¶ The seven Virtues, which now hang side by side in the magnificent gallery built by the second Earl of Normanton, each measure 6 ft. 11 in. in height by 2 ft. 9 in. in width, except the central panel, Faith, which is taller and narrower than the others, namely, 8 ft. by 2 ft. 5 in. Charity is represented by a group of a woman clasping three children in her protecting arms, whilst all the rest contain but a single allegorical figure, with the special attributes consecrated by tradition. The most noteworthy feature of the entire series, and that which first strikes the onlooker, is its thoroughly and unmistakably English character. No straining after classicism, no copying or imitation of the Italians are to be found in this the most successful work of decoration ever painted by a British artist. In the Nativity, Reynolds was accused of a too servile imitation of Correggio, but certainly no such reproach can apply to the seven Virtues. In the conception or the execution, in the drawing or the colour, in the types of his models or the arrangement of the draperies, nowhere is a trace discernible of any foreign element. Reynolds represented the Virtues under the features of the lovely and refined English ladies whom he was accustomed to paint; the draperies in which they are clothed are dresses of the eighteenth century, simplified no doubt, and chastened, but sometimes scarcely altered, as in the case of Temperance and Prudence. He thus avoided the cold conventionality usually so apparent in allegorical paintings, whilst losing nothing in dignity or impressiveness; if one misses the spiritual elevation of the Italians, there is a corresponding gain in humanity, and that indefinable quality, charm.
TEMPERANCE
PRUDENCE
TWO OF THE CARDINAL VIRTUES FROM SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’S PAINTINGS FOR THE WINDOW AT NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
FORTITUDE
