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Report Case Study 25 Application to export a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Omai, for a period of 15 months Expert Adviser’s Statement EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Brief Description of item(s) What is it? Painting What is it made of? Oil on Canvas What are its measurements? 236x145.5cm Who is the artist/maker and what are their dates? Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1723-92 What date is the item? c.1775-1776 What condition is it in? Good 2. Context Provenance Castle Howard since 1796 Key literary and exhibition references Royal Academy, Reynolds Exhibition 1986; David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Complete Catalogue, 2 Volumes 3. Waverley criteria Which of the Waverley criteria does the item meet? (If it is of ‘outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art learning or history’ which area of art learning or history). 1, 2 and 3 Very briefly why? Superb example of the artist’s work which also illustrate some of the key ideals of the Eighteenth century DETAILED CASE Completed by 1776 when exhibited at the Royal Academy. Painted by Reynolds for this exhibition and perhaps also as a fitting subject for engraving (Jacobe’s mezzotint is dated August 1777), kept by him and acquired after his death by Michael Bryan in 1796 probably acting for Reynolds young friend and keen admirer the 5th Earl of Carlisle (or in any case with this great collector in mind). The subject excited great curiosity both at a popular level and among the intellectuals of the time. The painting has always been acknowledged by connoisseurs as one of Reynolds’s finest works. The condition is good but for Reynolds exceptionally so largely because it was painted boldly and directly and without any laboured pursuit of brilliant effect or rash experimental technique. As an exercise in colour and lighting (with the sky continuing many of the subtle creams and whites of the robes and the darks of the shadows of the robe continued in the darker forms of the landscape) and in composition (with the movement of the figure, the gesture and the turning head all echoed or balanced by the minimal forms of the landscape with its dark palm sweeping up where a rock and drapery would normally have been placed) it is of great originality and entirely successful. The paintings was from 1796 until 2001 prominently on display at Castle Howard, a great house with a great collection of modern and Old Master paintings and ancient sculptures, both easy to visit and frequently visited. It was always there except when lent to major exhibitions such as that at the Royal Academy in 1986. Its export should be opposed on all three Waverly Criteria. Firstly, export should be opposed because of its importance for National History. The painting represents - in startlingly effective cohesion – two of the dominant strands in eighteenth century European intellectual life: the appeal of the ‘noble savage’ and the authority of canonical Greek ideals. Omai embodies the dignity and the simplicity of primitive man but he is also endowed with drapery the body language borrowed from the heroes and gods of ancient Greece and Rome. The Portrait records Omai’s appearance and the tattoos on his hands and arms and it was certainly painted from life but the invention of an appropriate attire and pose is of greater importance. Most importantly the painting reveals the sympathy for people of alien race which was possible even in an age of increasing Imperialist exploitation. Among Reynold’s portraits – and this is what underlines its Aesthetic Significance – it is perhaps the most remarkable case of him elevating portraiture from the facts of likeness and the topicality of fashion to a more elevated sphere. There are three dozen paintings by Reynolds in Tate and five in the National Gallery, and some of the portraits among these do aspire to the poetic and even the sublime, notably The Archers and the Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen in Tate, but only the military portraits in Trafalgar Square, and most notably the ruined but noble portrait of Lord Heathfield, impress one as profoundly serious as this portrait of Omai. The only paintings by him in public collections in London which I would consider an equal in beauty or imaginative power are far more intimate works – pre-eminently Nelly O’Brian in the Wallace Collection. The success of Omai as a composition and in its colouring and the unusual confidence of its technique is mentioned above Its scholarly importance arises naturally from its historical and aesthetic significance. Omai’s visit to the United Kingdom is of course an event of great interest for anthropology, ethnography, social history, and many other disciplines: the interpretation of what Omai stood for (some would claim that denial of what Omai really was) is of no less interest and raises the painting to a work which is of central significance for the history of ideas, akin to celebrated images in Pope’s Essay on Man or Wordworth’s Prelude, with both of which it may indeed be compared. 1. Detailed description of item(s) if more than in Executive summary, and any comments. See above Executive summary What does it depict? What does it tell us about that period? Who made it/painted it/wrote it? No. of comparable items by the same artist already in the UK, in both public and private collections? 2. Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item(s). See above Executive summary Significance of figures associated with the item(s): maker/client/owners? Significance of subject-matter? Significance of materials/process/usage? Is/are the item(s) of local/regional/national importance? Summary of related items in public/private ownership in the UK .
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