LOWELL LIBSON LTD BRITISH ART TEFAF NEW YORK FALL October 28 – November 1, 2017 PARALLEL LINES Contemporary Chinese ink painting and the great age of British Landscape Painters New York, November 13–18, 2017 London, November 30–December 8, 2017 LONdON ART WEEK WINTER November 30–December 8, 2017 TEFAF MAASTRICHT March 10–18, 2018 SALON dU dESSIN Paris, March 21–26, 2018 LOWELL LIBSON LTD 2017 Recent Acquisitions • Autumn 2017 Jonathan Richardson 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 12 Jean-Étienne Liotard 14 & 18 3 Clifford Street · London W1S 2LF Jacob More 22 Telephone: +44 (0)20 7734 8686 John Hamilton Mortimer 24, 26 & 30 Email: [email protected] John Deare 32 Website: www.lowell-libson.com Pietro Pacilli 36 Lowell Libson Johann Valentin Sonnenschein 40 [email protected] Benjamin West 44 & 46 Jonny Yarker [email protected] Joseph Gott 48 Cressida St Aubyn Johan Zoffany 52 [email protected] Thomas Gainsborough 62 Deborah Greenhalgh Paul Sandby 66 [email protected] Michael Angelo Rooker 70 The gallery is open by appointment, George Richmond 72 Monday to Friday. The entrance is in Old Burlington Street John Martin 74 preface This catalogue of recent acquisitions appears drawing for his print of The Reviewers’ Cave, somewhat earlier than usual to reflect a two significant drawings by Benjamin West rather busy schedule of activities over the and Richmond’s intensely observed drawing next six months. Two iterations of TEFAF of a woman. in New York and Maastricht, the Salon du Finished works of art include our two Dessin and a long-anticipated exhibition, remarkable portraits by Liotard – in pastel Parallel Lines, a collaboration with my good and oil – representing the high points from friend Marcus Flacks, which explores some each of his two visits to London. A tour of the visual and aesthetic similarities seen de force by the late eighteenth-century in certain Chinese and British drawings. master of terracotta, J. V. Sonnenschein also We have made a number of important demonstrates the expressive capabilities of acquisitions over the last few months, the medium. Further previously unrecorded some of which are included in the present paintings include Jacob More’s perfect catalogue. Although one of our particular view of Ariccia, Mortimer’s impressive interests is landscape painting the present Banditti Fishing and John Martin’s small but selection emphasizes the enduring fascina- monumental treatment of Macbeth and the tion of the human form. Three Witches. The learning process is shown in One of the most exciting revelations of Reynolds’s wonderful transcription of a the last year has been the re-emergence after Guercino drawing, Mortimer’s ‘Academy’ conservation and research of the small scale drawing of a nude and Richardson’s pene- replica of Zoffany’s Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock trating Self-portrait. Match, the masterpiece of his time in India. Preparatory works – the fascinating I am, as ever, absolutely indebted to Jonny process of transforming an idea into a Yarker, my co-director, as well as to Cressida finished statement – are represented, St Aubyn and Deborah Greenhalgh. Without amongst others, by Pacilli’s dynamic them, our various endeavours would simply terracotta of San Camillo de Lellis (detail not happen. We all look forward to seeing opposite); John Deare’s ravishing study for you in the gallery and at our various fairs a marble relief, Mortimer’s highly complex and exhibitions. Lowell LIbSON 7 JONATHAN RICHARdSON 1667–1745 Self-Portrait Oil on canvas most British important art theorist of the 12 ⅜ x 10 ⅞ inches · 315 x 276 mm eighteenth century. Dated ‘Aug / 1733’, lower right Richardson had risen from modest ColleCtIoNs beginnings – he was the son of a London Probably Jonathan Richardson, the Younger silk weaver – to become one of the most (1694–1771); successful portrait painters of his genera- Probably his posthumous sale, Langford tion. His sitters included many luminaries and Son, London, 18th February 1772, lot 45 of the late Stuart and early Georgian era (‘Richardson Senior, His own portrait’); – aristocrats Sir Robert Walpole and Lady James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Mary Wortley Montagu, authors Alexander Dalhousie (1812–60), before 1861; Lady Susan Georgiana Broun Bourke (1837– Pope, Matthew Prior and Sir Richard Steele, 98), by whom brought to Colstoun House, the sculptor Michael Rysbrack, the artist Sir Haddington (according to an old handwritt en James Thornhill and the great physician- label on the reverse); collectors Sir Hans Sloane and Dr Richard By descent in the Broun family at Colstoun Mead. According to his son, Richardson had House to 2017. twice been ‘powerfully invited’ to be the lIteratUre King’s painter, but had refused because of J. Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits. National his ‘aversion to what he called the slavery Portrait Gallery, London 1977, vol.1, pp.228 and of court dependence.’2 He authored the Jonathan Richardson 231, under cat. no.706, reproduced vol.2, plate pioneering Theory of Painting in 1715 and the Self-portrait 674. Two Discourses in 1719 and was a director, Black and red chalk touched with white on blue paper from its foundation, of the Great Queen 15 ⅞ x 11 ⅞ inches · 405 x 301 mm This important, fi nely painted self-portrait Street Academy. On Richardson’s death in Dated ’30 Aug. 1733’ © The Trustees of the British Museum was made by Jonathan Richardson towards 1745, the chronicler of the early Georgian art the end of his life. From 1728, until his world, George Vertue remarked that: ‘this death in 1745, Richardson undertook a was the last of the Eminent old painters. concerted campaign of self-portraiture. It that had been contemporyes in Reputation – was not until the sale of the collection of Kneller Dahl Jarvis & Richardson for portrait Richardson, the Younger in 1772 that the painting.’3 extent of his activities as a self-portraitist As Susan Owens has pointed out in the were revealed, prompting the writer Horace recent exhibition devoted to Richardson’s Walpole to observe that: ‘after his retirement self-portraiture, he only began to produce from business, the good old man seems to studies of himself in around 1728.4 Made have amused himself with writing a short during his semi-retirement, Richardson’s poem, and drawing his own or son’s portrait self-portraits constitute one of the most every day.’1 Whilst numerous drawings extraordinary projects of self-depiction survive, Richardson produced very few undertaken in early modern Britain. The painted self-portraits, of which this is one present oil portrait sits neatly within the of the most impressive. Painted on an sequence. Made on a small scale, Richardson intimate scale, this portrait is a remarkably depicts himself, as he frequently did without lively and penetrating depiction of the wig, wearing a cap.There is much evidence 8 to suggest that his self-portraiture was a Notes private, meditative process of self-scrutiny and 1. Quoted in Susan Owens, Jonathan as such Richardson frequently depicted himself Richardson: By Himself, exh. cat. London with informal ease. The painting, like the draw- (The Courtauld Gallery), 2015, pp.9–10. 2. Jonathan Richardson, Morning Thoughts, ings, is closely observed and fi nely painted, London, 1776, p.281. the scale further points to its place within the 3. G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The drawn sequence. Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Carol Gibson-Wood has observed that Society, London, 1929–47, III, p.125. 4. Susan Owens, Jonathan Richardson By Richardson’s self-portraiture was a way of Himself, exh. cat., London (Courtauld ‘manifesting that self-analytic process which Gallery), 2015, pp.9–18. he associated with the attainment of virtue.’5 5. Carol Gibson-Wood, Jonathan Richardson: Gibson-Wood points to the parallel with Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment, Richardson’s own poetry, which he produced New Haven and London, 2000, pp.134–135. 6. Jonathan Richardson, Morning Thoughts, continuously during his retirement. In a poem London, 1776, pp.132–3. of 1736 entitled ‘A Better Picture’ he actually 7. Quoted in Carol Gibson-Wood, Jonathan describes the painting of a self-portrait as a Richardson: Art Theorist of the English Jonathan Richardson metaphor for the process of self-improvement.6 Enlightenment, New Haven and London, 2000, p.127. Self-portrait, c.1729 It is clear that Richardson thought of the Oil on canvas twin activities of poetry and self-portraiture 29 x 24 ¾ inches · 737 x 629 mm © National Portrait Gallery, London as both analogous and complementary. In the introduction of Morning Thoughts, Richardson explained: I wake early, think; dress me, think; come back to my chamber, think; and as I allow no thoughts unworthy to be written, I write. Thus verse is grown habitual to me. I pretend, however, to no fi nished poetry, no nice correction they are works of another kind, like sketches in drawing.7 It is clear also, given his collecting, that Richardson must have been conscious of the great series of self-portraits produced by earlier artists, such as Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Titian and others. A larger, less incisive or carefully executed self-portrait survives in the National Portrait Gallery, London and seems likely to have been a scaled up copy of the present study. This inti- mate painted portrait is likely to have remained in the collection of Richardson’s son, Jonathan Richardson, the Younger, and was probably included in his posthumous sale. 10 11 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLdS PRA 1723–1792 SeateD Youth, after GuerCino Pen and brown ink on buff paper neighbour, James Bulteel, concerning his 10 x 7 ½ inches · 254 x 197 mm son’s career prospects. Bulteel suggested Drawn c.1740 that Joshua should go to London, offering ColleCtIoNs to introduce him personally to ‘those in Agnew’s, London; artistic circles.’2 In the Spring of 1740, it was John Nicholas Brown, Providence, Rhode Island, agreed that Reynolds should be bound to 1942; Hudson for a period of four years.