Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800 Online edition NB: This article is divided into the following pdfs: character of very great pride and ill-nature, and not painted at least 25 portraits, or the interrelated • Part I: Essay; sitters A–K quite without foundation as he is very blunt and all Elliot, Horneck and Scawen families. A single those who he does not like he will not take any notice page from his account book, from 1792, has • Part II: Named sitters L–Z; others of and hardly speaks to them; and following too much his own inclination, does not enough conform survived; it suggests that his prices ranged from GARDNER, Daniel to the customs of the polite world. … But to me he is 5 gns to 23, although neither medium nor format quite otherwise, for he so much liked me that he told is indicated. The engraving of numbers of his Kendal c.1750 – London 8.VII.1805 me the opinion he had of himself – that he thought portraits was probably more lucrative than the Gardner (Gardener, Garner) is said to have been himself proud and not good-natured, that he had execution of the orginals. In a letter to his born in Kendal in 1750, the nephew of some envy and much ambition, for in the arts those brother Lord Grantham, Frederick Robinson Christopher Redman, upholder and mayor of who love painting and, from experience, know the (23.II.1779, Bedfordshire and Luton Archives, Kendal (in 1749–50 and 1760–62). The family vast difficulty of excelling, look up at those men who L30/14/333/181) reported, among a list of background is obscure, despite the extensive have produced such wonders, with all the admiration artists active in London, that “Mr Gardner in local searches made by Williamson before 1913, zealots in religion can pay their saints. Bond St. draws in crayons in the manner of which have not been explored further in the His “peculiar disposition” was noted too by Hamilton (but in general full length figures) etc. Oxford DNB article (as accessed .IV.2016) or Farington (Diary, 17.XII.1806), who said he was Little boy [his nephew, later Earl of Morley] to other sources. Research in 2016 indicates that “extremely parsimonious” and delighted in sit for him.” By 1787 he was able to acquire an the artist’s grandfather was a Daniel Gardner, arguing. expensive house in Kendal, and at his death had cordwainer, of Osmotherley, near Ulverston, Northcote (letter of 21.XII.1771, RA archives, an income of some £1500 a year: no doubt where he died in 1740. The pastellist’s father was NOR/7, incorrectly transcribed in Whitley 1928) accumulated through hard work, and conserved Caleb Gardner (also a cordwainer; he became a tells us that Gardner had met Reynolds through through his extreme parsimony. freeman of Lancaster 1738–9, but was later a Mr Elliott of Port Eliot (Edward Elliot (1727– Gardner lived initially at 120 New Bond grocer in Kendal). On 6.XI.1743 in Millom, he st 1804), created 1 Baron Eliot 1784). He is widely Street, moving to 142 in the same street in 1781 married Elizabeth “Redmon”, Christopher said to have worked briefly in Reynolds’s studio (this was the address of Thomas Watson on the Redman’s sister. Daniel Gardner, “of Kendal, c.1773 (Mannings 2000, p. 514 puts the date 1774 plate of his print after Gardner’s Lady upholsterer” (his uncle’s profession, to whom he back to the late 1770s), for which the evidence is Jersey, although by 1776 Watson had moved to may well have been apprenticed), “son of unsatisfactory. Williamson’s statement seems to no. 112). In 1793 he moved to 3 Beak Street, Caleb”, also became a freeman of Lancaster in be an inference from the extravagant theory – Golden Square (where Williamson says he lived 1768–69. His baptismal record has not been possibly triggered by a confusion with the work’s until his death). A brief trip to Paris took place in located (there is evidence that his family were patron – that Gardner painted the foliage in 1802–3, when he visited the Louvre (it is unclear Baptists, and minutes of Baptist births in Kendal Reynolds’s Montgomery sisters. He was of course if he was the Mr Gardner, painter who are lost), but he may have been born before the influenced by Reynolds’s compositions, several accompanied John Opie on a trip to Flanders in 1750 date that Williamson cited without of which he copied (for example a full-length 1786). Gardner died from liver failure, on authority. A Lancaster bye-law enacted in 1758 portrait of the Duke of Northumberland in his 8.VII.1805, in Warwick Street, Golden Square required apprentices to serve a full term of seven coronation robes draws from Reynolds’s portrait (according to the Gentleman’s magazine; this may years before obtaining freedom: the traditional of Lord Rockingham, perhaps through the 1774 be the Beak Street house). The burial entry in St 1750 year of birth would imply that Daniel was engraving). But in a letter of 12.XI.1779 Gardner James’s Piccadilly records his names as Gardener apprenticed aged 12 or younger. excuses the deficiencies in what “is absolutely ( a spelling also seen in some Kendal sources: Gardner was said (Romney 1830, p. 12) to the first oil picture I ever finished”: an unusual note that Romney 1830, who prints Gardner in have been taught by George Romney, but claim had he worked for Reynolds. the book, has an erratum correcting this to claimed to have learned little from him (Romney Within a few years of his silver medal he had Gardener, p. 333). There was no will, but his in fact left for London in 1762). Gardner himself made a considerable impression. The pastellist only child, George Gardner of Lincoln’s Inn, moved to London (Cockspur Street) at some John Warren (q.v.), writing to his patron Andrew inherited the estate with a net value of over stage in the late 1760s. (A Watson print of 1768 Caldwell from Bath 23.XI.1776, refers to reports £7600 (detailed in Williamson 1921). A large listed by Williamson and cited by Grundy 1921 that Hugh Douglas Hamilton “is gone to collection of his works passed to the artist’s as evidence of an earlier arrival appears to be a Ireland”, implying that he had failed in granddaughter Anne Eliza, Mrs Dixon. They confusion.) He is recorded as having entered the competition with Daniel Gardner, to Warren’s were then sold to Lord Carlingford and in turn Royal Academy Schools on 17.III.1770 (no age is puzzlement as Hamilton “gives such a truth both to Lady Strachey, 63 of whose portraits were given), where he was taught by Zoffany, Dance, of form & colour as makes his works far dispersed at Christie’s on 17.VII.1911. This B. West, Cipriani and Bartolozzi (qq.v.). He was superior” while Gardner was “a man of so little followed soon after the 1908 sale of the portrait one of four students awarded a silver medal for comparative Merit”, who, though “not without of Lady Fawkener for 1250 gns, a price which drawing academy figures at the Royal Academy taste & Genius”, was “a bad Draughtsman & brought Gardner out of obscurity. Schools on 10.XII.1771. His grandson’s letter of clumsy in his execution”. Gardner seems to have valued the somewhat 16.IX.1856 names the submission as a crayon Gardner married Ann, the sister of the rough, unfinished appearance of much of his painting of The Chained Captive, and it has been engraver Francis Haward, on 8.X.1774 (St work, and from the mid-1770s he practised suggested that this was one of his pastels of George’s Hanover Square; not 1776 as highly original techniques in which pastel, George White (v. Williamson 1921; Postle 1995; Williamson and other sources have); one of the scraped to dust with a knife, was applied, Forrester 2005); White was also the subject of witnesses was the engraver Thomas Watson who sometimes using brandy as a vehicle, to achieve a portraits by many other artists including had already engraved several plates after sharp brilliance; transparent layers of pigment Reynolds and Russell (1772). He exhibited a Gardner’s work. There were two sons; Ann died were overlaid to mimic the effects of shot silk. portrait of an old man (possibly the same shortly after giving the birth to the second in Gardner used dry pastel for faces, gouache for picture) at the Academy of that year, but no 1781. The elder, and only surviving, son George dresses and watercolour for backgrounds (often further works were shown at the major London was sent to Kendal and brought up by the outdoor, rustic scenes), a mixture which has left exhibitions. Perhaps this was because of the Pennington family with whom Gardner had many conservation problems (Mrs Marton is a personality described by James Northcote in a formed a close relationship. He was otherwise good example: v. Cumming & Colbourne 1998); letter to his brother of 29.III.1772 (RA archives, notoriously anti-social, although he is said to the technique however echoes that of NOR/8): have enjoyed playing with children. By 1781, he miniaturists such as J.-A.-M. Lemoine who Last Sunday I breakfasted with Mr Gardner at half was already celebrated in verse, with William inserted slips of ivory under areas of flesh in past eight and remained with him till past three in the Hayley praising his “Taste and Ease”.