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Page 1: Stubbs: A Self Portrait

Stubbs: A Self PortraitAuthor(s): Michael JafféSource: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 127, No. 983 (Feb., 1985), pp. 68+85+87Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/881993 .

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Page 2: Stubbs: A Self Portrait

Stubbs: a self portrait

BY MICHAEL JAFFE

AT Christie's sale on 26th March 1976 lot 82, offered as 'the property of a deceased estate', was a small portrait in oval form of a middle-aged man wearing a buff coat, painted bust-length so as to show what appears as his left arm. It was consigned as the property of the Executors of the late Alan Evans, a collector of eighteenth-century English painting, chiefly portraits and conversation pieces. It was catalogued as by George Stubbs A.R.A.: 'this may be a self portrait dating from circa 1770'. It was knocked down to Spink and Son Ltd, and included by them, after it was cleaned, in their end of year exhibition of 'English Oil Paintings', confidently as a Self Portrait by Stubbs: but it was sold privately to the present owner and removed before the exhibition opened.' It has not otherwise attracted attention (Fig.l).

The dark haired, brown eyed, jowly man, apparently in his late thirties or perhaps early forties, has the salient features of Stubbs as he is known later in life not only from the famous Self-Portrait in enamel on Wedgwood biscuit-ware, which was painted in 1781 for Richard Thorold, now in the National Portrait Gallery,2 and from the pencil drawing preliminary to that in the collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon,3 but also from portrayals by other artists: by his friend Ozias Humphry, the water-colour presumably of 1777, likewise in the National Por- trait Gallery,4 and the pastel in the Walker Art Gallery of c.1794; by George Dance the half-length profile dated 1794 belonging to the Royal Academy; the head drawn in chalks, also by Ozias Humphry and preparatory to his water-colour, a drawing from life which is signed with initials and dated 1777,5 offering a particularly telling comparison (Fig.19); and the etching of the painter seated stoutly upright, three quarter- length, at his easel, paintbrush and palette in hand, the amateur effort of Mr Thomas Orde who became the first Lord Bolton

(Fig.20).6 In the portrait painted in oils on an oval of copper the broad dome of the forehead, the jut of the large boned nose, the full lips with the lower lip protuberant, the cleft chin, the incip- ient dewlaps, the shape of the eyebrows and the intensely focus- sed gaze from deep set eyes combine to make the likeness a hard one to mistake. Scratched rather amateurishly on the back of the copper support, in cursive script of mid-eighteenth century form and flourish, are just legible by raking light, in the shorter direction 'Moore/Brown/.....' and, twice in the longer, 'Stubs' spelt as Josiah Wedgwood, and as others doubtless who knew him, spelt the painter's name (Fig.21). There is no reason to suppose that these inscriptions, unnoticed in either the Christie or the Spink catalogues, were not written by a contemporary, presumably Mr Moore Brown if he was the first owner. The revealing contrast between the whole thrust and character of the portrait, both the inward strength of the sitter's regard and the comparative weakness in rendering the forearm, omitting the hand which by mirror reversal is understood to be holding a palette, speak for an exercise in self-portraiture. The 1781 por- trait shows that he continued to find difficulty in simulating the action of his own arm.

The placing of the head within the oval may be compared to the yet smoother surface of Stubbs's portrait in enamel on Wedgwood ware of Josiah Wedgwood in 1780;7 and he was also to use an upright oval for his self portrait on a grey hunter of 1782.8 There are several instances of his use of copper as a support for enamels during the 1770s, including of course the Fall of Phaethon of 1775,9 triumphantly depicted beside him in the Ozias Humphry water-colour: nevertheless he was not so very unusual among English painters of his day in choosing copper to promote the finish required. What is crucial to his authorship of the small oil is the handling of paint on the face, particularly well preserved, and in particular such habits as the pinpoint highlighting of the eyes. It comes very close to that of the trainer in the Macdonald Buchanan version of Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath,'0 of the standing coachman or groom in Hunts- men setting out from Southill, and of the jockey in Turf at New- market,12 all unchallenged masterpieces of the mid-1760s. It comes closest of all to that of the jockey holding Molly Long-Legs, even in scale, which was exhibited in 1762."13 Moreover the lighting and the tremulous edges used in rendering the form of clothes can be closely matched by that on the jockey in the Tate Gallery's Otho, with John Larkin up dated 1768.14 Nothing is strange except that this arresting likeness of Stubbs done, to judge from his appearance and from the style of painting, by about 1765, has lacked critical attention. It is fitting that it hangs on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum near to the contem- porary Gimcrack, with John Pratt up, on Newmarket Heath.'5 The strength of Stubbs's personality and of his rendering of that imposes itself on our attention from many feet away. We have no other self-confrontation of him from this decade, and no other from any time which is painted with the immediacy of life.

1 16th November-3rd December 1976, No.27, as c. 1770, reproduced in colour; oils on copper, 13.9 by 11.3 cm. Inscribed on the back 'Stubs', 'Stubs', and 'Moore/Brown' all apparently by the same hand. Moore Brown is no more readily identifiable among the painter's acquaintances than the sitter in James Stanley at the age of thirty-three, dated 1755 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). I am grateful to the owner for his permission to publish this painting, and to Christie's (Mr Henry Wyndham) for obtaining permission to publish here the name of the vendor in 1976. Mrs Judy Egerton has kindly informed me of Alan Evans as a collector. 2BRUCE TATTERSALL: Stubbs & Wedgwood, Tate Gallery exhibition catalogue, London [1974], B.

3BASIL TAYLOR: Stubbs, London [1971], frontispiece. 4TATTERSALL, loc. cit., No.5.

5 JUDY EGERTON: George Stubbs 1724-1806, catalogue of the exhibition at the Tate Gallery and at the Yale Center for British Art, London [1984], No.1, colour pl. Sotheby's sale, 17th November 1983, lot 113, 'the property of a gentleman', bought Agnew and sold to the Trustees of the Rt. Hon. Olive, Countess Fit- zwilliam Chattels Settlement and Lady Juliet de Chair: black and white chalks, on brown paper, 42 by 36 cm.

6 Lettered, within the ruled area, 'Mr Orde f/A Sketch/Bretherton/Quae cur nitentes/Pingere equ(es)! - ' and 'George Stubbs' outside the ruled area, 20.2 by 14.7 cm, etched by James Bretherton after a sketch by Thomas Orde for DANIEL

LYSONS: The Environs of London, Vol.XIX, London [1823]. 7 TATTERSALL, loc. cit., No.9. 8 EGERTON, op. cit., Fig.4. 9TAYLOR, op. cit., pl.95. 10 TAYLOR, op. cit., p.207, pl.35 (detail). 11

TAYLOR, op. cit., p.208, colour pl.42 (detail). 12EGERTON, op. cit., No.57. 13 EGERTON, op. cit., No.37. 14EGERTON, op. cit., No.58, colour pl. (detail). 15s EGERTON, op. cit., No.56, colour pl.

I am grateful to Mrs Egerton for arranging a private occasion at the Tate Gallery for the Editor of this Magazine and myself to make direct confrontations in the exhibition with the Self portrait, kindly made available by the owner for this purpose.

85

SHORTER NOTICES

village church of St Marylebone, which hints at secrecy. There is evidence of recusancy within the Beaumont family;"3 and something similar may explain why the Hoskinses, like the Co- opers, are so elusive. It begins to look as though the whole Cooper-Turner-Hoskins-Beaumont family group had strong Catholic sympathies.

13 EDMOND, loc. cit. at note 1 above, pp.115-17 and n.252.

SHORTER NOTICES

village church of St Marylebone, which hints at secrecy. There is evidence of recusancy within the Beaumont family;13 and something similar may explain why the Hoskinses, like the Co- opers, are so elusive. It begins to look as though the whole Cooper-Turner-Hoskins-Beaumont family group had strong Catholic sympathies.

13 EDMOND, loc. cit. at note 1 above, pp.115-17 and n.252.

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Page 3: Stubbs: A Self Portrait

19. George Stubbs, by Ozias Humphry. Signed and dated 1777. Black and white chalks on brown paper, 42 by 36 cm. (Trustees of the Rt. Hon. Olive, Countess Fitzwilliam Chattels Settlement and Lady Juliet de Chair).

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20. George Stubbs, by Thomas Orde. Etching byJames Bretherton, 20.2 by 14.7 cm. (The Environs of London, Vol. XIX, London, 1823).

21. Reverse of portrait illustrated in Fig.1, showing scratched on the surface the names 'Moore/Brown/ ...' and

twice (vertically) 'Stubs'.

19. George Stubbs, by Ozias Humphry. Signed and dated 1777. Black and white chalks on brown paper, 42 by 36 cm. (Trustees of the Rt. Hon. Olive, Countess Fitzwilliam Chattels Settlement and Lady Juliet de Chair).

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20. George Stubbs, by Thomas Orde. Etching byJames Bretherton, 20.2 by 14.7 cm. (The Environs of London, Vol. XIX, London, 1823).

21. Reverse of portrait illustrated in Fig. 1, showing scratched on the surface the names 'Moore/Brown!...' and twice (vertically) 'Stubs'.

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Page 4: Stubbs: A Self Portrait

1. Self portrait, by George Stubbs. Oil on copper, 13.9 by 10.8 cm. (Private collection, England; on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).

Here reproduced actual size.

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