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John Hunter and His Painters John Hunter and his painters Selwyn Taylor DM MCh FRCS Honorary Curator of Portraits The Royal College of Surgeons of England When contemplating the rich collection of portraits on Apothecaries and as a result it hangs now in the very the walls of this College, some ofwhich surround you as I beautiful Court Room of the Worshipful Society of speak, it is not difficult to appreciate what a splendid Apothecaries in Blackfriars Lane. The College owns a source of history they represent. Among them the copy by Henry M Allen which was given by Evelyn College is proud to be custodian of a unique group of Sprawson (Fig. 2). It is, I have no doubt, an excellent paintings which portray John Hunter, the father of likeness, showing Hunter a little untidy in appearance, surgical science, whose bicentenary we currently cele- thoughtful, but kindly. It is certainly my favourite brate. But for me, the most remarkable fact is that no one portrait of the great man and, like many of the rough has discussed this particular group in any detail since Sir drafts which the College has been fortunate to acquire Arthur Keith delivered a 'Discourse on the Portraits and over the years from the artists who have been commis- Personality of John Hunter' in February 1928 (1). Keith sioned to paint portraits, it conveys more of the sitter's was Conservator of the Hunterian Collection and a character than most. distinguished anatomist and anthropologist, but custod- I must say, however, that I do sympathise with Anne ians have problems and Keith's opening comment was: Hunter because with that straggling and wispy red hair 'In spite of every care Reynolds' portrait of Hunter is not fringing his face, John Hunter does not impress me as a lasting well'. Sadly this is still true, but let me pay tribute giant of his profession; in addition, Anne did not like his to the devoted skill and attention which Mr Scott untidy beard which had not been present when he was Moncrieff has given to it in recent years. courting her nor is it in the great Reynolds portrait. The The baseline for any discussion about the portraiture story is told,- although I can find no authority for it, that of John Hunter must be the fine picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds persuaded Hunter that since he had such an Reynolds which for so long has hung behind the interesting bone, structure underlying his face, it would President's chair in the Council Room of the College be difficult for him as a painter to do it justice without a (Fig. 1). cast being taken to assist him in the task. It was then only We know from the painter's notebooks and Hunter's a small step to persuade the sitter that it would be much own comments in his diaries that Reynolds found his more comfortable for him if he shaved off his whiskers subject a bad sitter and although the two were friends, before the wet clay became incorporated in them, and this may well have been one of the factors which this he agreed. We have here in the College the resulting mitigated against the success of the venture when the life cast of Hunter's face which tells us much, and is artist first embarked upon it. Certainly Hunter's wife especially valuable when other portraits are claimed to be Anne, did not approve of the first draft which Reynolds ofJohn Hunter (Fig. 3). Even in the photograph you can submitted and in due course she gave it away to James readily detect the tell-tale wart on the right side of his Weatherall, an upholsterer in the Haymarket. Weatherall nose, the slight deviation of the nose to the left and the was the man who managed the Hunter's property on the pattern of the lips and mouth. east side of Leicester Square in which they lived and At this point my sympathy passes from Anne Hunter entertained. At a much later date, Anne explained to to Sir Joshua Reynolds, for he had started the final Weatherall, who continued to manage the property for portrait in 1786 with four sittings and later in his diary some years after John died, that it was Reynolds' sketch records that he gave two more sittings in 1788 and yet of her husband. Fortunately, unlike Lady Churchill who another in 1789 for 'retouching' of the canvas. It is disposed of Graham Sutherland's portrait of her hus- reasonable to assume that the absence of any sittings in band, when Anne gave the portrait to Weatherall, she did 1787 were due to mutual dissatisfaction with the way the not order him to destroy it. Years later Weatherall gave it project was progressing. This is not so surprising for by to his nephew, Thomas Knight, who qualified as a doctor now Hunter was a sick man with extensive arterioscler- at Apothecaries' Hall and later joined the Livery. osis and recurrent attacks of angina. He was often in pain Fortunately, in 1857, Thomas Knight presented it to the and this began to show in his face. At this juncture let me 2 S Taylor Figure 1. Oil on canvas by Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA, 1786. Figure 3. Life mask in plaster, c. 1785. picture was far advanced, Hunter fell into a train of thought, in the attitude in which he is represented in the present portrait. Reynolds without saying a word, turned the canvas upside down, made a fresh sketch, with the head between the legs of the former figure, and so proceeded to lay on over the former painting the colours of that which now graces the walls of the library at the College of Surgeons. This story has been repeated countless times and, as is so often the case, even in scientific papers, the original statement is usually found to be embroidered. Thus a leader in the Lancet in 1937 quotes how Leslie, Groves and Cronin all described 'a thick cake of paint between the legs where the head had been' (3). Indeed the saga of restoration of this canvas by Reynolds would fill a book. The fading of many of this great artist's paintings has been attributed to the pig- ments and media which he used and experimented with, but unfortunately they all too often result in areas ofwhat Figure 2. Oil on canvas by Henry M Allen, a copy of the looks like bitumen, cracked and featureless. Time has original by Reynolds now in the Society of Apothecaries, 1785. shown these materials to be unstable but, fortunately for us, in 1816, less than 30 years after Reynolds painted quote to you an old legend written by Drewry Ottley Hunter's portrait, John Jackson was commissioned by which was published in what was the first full-length life Sir Charles Bell to paint a copy which now hangs in the of Hunter (2). National Portrait Gallery. This copy shows how the Reynolds found Hunter a bad sitter and had not been able to original must have looked, with a fine purple velvet coat satisfy himself with the likeness, when one day, after the clothing a rather pale Hunter, but much of the original's John Hunter and his painters 3 details, the lettering on the spines of the books and so on, is sadly skimped. In 1817, when Reynolds' portrait was given to the College the Conservator of the National Gallery advised that 'nothing should be done'. A further copy painted in 1854 by Muller showed by comparison much fading. In 1863 Leslie wrote: 'In the careless custody of the College of Surgeons the picture appears irretrievably ruined', but then a Mr Farrer was called in and after his attention the portrait was said to look 'as fresh from the painter's easel'. One dreads to think what he must have done. Fading continued until, in 1937, Sir Alfred Webb-Johnson invited Mr W A Holder to restore Reynolds' portrait. After a great deal of painstaking work the picture appeared much as you see it today and Holder was able to report that the deterioration of the pigment had substantially come to an end and only regular cleaning should be necessary in the future. A few years ago, after taking advice, I removed the glass and I think that the picture has enjoyed the opportunity of breathing naturally. Thus it came about that in 1958 Sir Reginald Watson-Jones decided to try and settle the matter of the upside down canvas once and for all and subjected the painting to examination by X-rays. Sir Reginald de- scribed how the National Gallery: skilfully carried out the task which shows that the story told by Figure 4. Engraving by William Sharp published 1 January Drewry Ottley forty years after Hunter's death was not true, 1788. but it does reveal something much more interesting-the amazing change which Hunter's face has undergone in the intervening two or three years between Reynolds' start on the diary, a sheet of paper with notes in the handwriting of portrait and its completion. From a youthful, almost plump Sir Anthony Carlisle who, as President of the Court of middle aged individual he has shrunk to a much older man and Examiners in July 1831, had been sitting all day in the the strained appearance we now see is surely the result of the Council Room examining candidates for the Membership advanced arterial disease which was by then causing repeated of the College. His gaze had been caught, as he sat there, attacked of angina and was to lead to his death in 1793 when he by Hunter's portrait on the wall for he had been a pupil was only sixty five years old (4).
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