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About Art papers. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1981-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1981)
accompanied by a full identification. The engraving reveals more of the figure and includes a table and a background drape as furnishings. In both the engraving and the painting, Craggs’ dark eyebrows, prominent nose and double chin are framed by the popular full-length wig. The Swan House portrait was attributed to Sir Godfrey Kneller, but only recently has the signature of the artist in the right hand corner of the canvas been verified by Professor Stewart to be that of Kneller. The painting can be dated about 1709, based on its sim ilarity with the missing Kneller of that year. It was not uncommon for a client to order similar likenesses in different sizes from the artist. James Craggs, Senior, was a very shrewd individual who rose from extremely humble origins to a posi tion in the household of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, noted for, among other things, their splendid house, Blenheim Palace. Craggs later became a Member of Parliament in 1702 and joint Postmaster General in 1715. He amassed a great fortune through his dealings with the South Sea Company, although he was not one of its directors. Like Lord Teviot, Craggs committed suicide in response to severe financial misfortune. He took poison on the eve of an inves tigation into his role in the South Sea Company’s illegal speculative activity which brought ruin to thousands of investors in 1720. The Teviot and Craggs portraits are good examples of the standard treat ment of individuals in seventeenth and eighteenth century English por traiture. The faces in portraits by Kneller and his contemporaries are treated as polite masks, well- mannered and respectable, but devoid of life and humor. The demand for portraits had never been greater due to a rise in population and increased affluence among the gentry, but this did not reflect an interest in the arts so much as it revealed an attitude towards portraits as posses sions and appropriate furnishings for the new homes Of the gentry during a period of great building activity. The dependence on stock poses did not originate with Kneller, but his reliance on them, together with his employment of numerous assistants, created a virtual factory system in his studio and produced a great number of mediocre likenesses. At the begin ning of the eighteenth century, Horace Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting condemned Kneller’s work when he wrote, “ .. .where he offered one picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre.” To be fair, there are many examples of Kneller’s ability to penetrate the character of the men he painted, despite the constrictions of the uniform wigs and stiff poses. In the portrait of James Craggs, Senior at Swan House, the character of the sitter has not been sacrificed. The facial features are individualized, and in the direct gaze of the eyes and the slight protrusion of the lower jaw, there is revealed some of the deter mination that contributed to this in dividual’s rise to power. Craggs was a well-known figure in eighteenth century England, but today he is familiar only to specialists in English history. Another newly identified individual of the Swan House portraits has received much more lasting recognition. Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), the prominent eighteenth century dramatist turned architect, is portrayed in a three- quarter length portrait, once attributed to Kneller, which hangs above the portrait of Craggs in the library. The likeness appears to be based on a portrait of Vanbrugh in Art Papers September-October 1981 the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London, tentatively at tributed to Thomas Murray (1663- 1734), a Scottish-born artist. The resemblance was recognized by Pro fessor Stewart and supported by Dr. Rogers. The similarity of the heads in the two portraits, crowned by the familiar long wigs, is very striking, but the rest of the compositions are quite different. The uncertainty of the attribution of the London portrait makes it impossible to conclude at this time that Thomas Murray was responsible for the Historical Society’s portrait. What appears more certain is the identity of Sir John Vanbrugh. An intriguing relationship exists between the contemporary per sonalities of James Craggs and Sir John Vanbrugh, adding significance to the juxtaposition of the portraits in the Swan House library. The antag onism between the Duchess of Marlborough and the architect, Vanbrugh, over the design for Blenheim Palace is well-known. What is surprising is that in a letter written by the Duchess in 1721 she holds Craggs responsible for the choice of Vanbrugh as architect, “...tis cer tain,” she writes, “that old Craggs, who was as ill a man as ever I knew, recommended Sr. John Vanbrugh to the Duke of Marlborough.. .Sr. John, who tho hee was in the queens office of Works would not have been employed in that building if hee had not been recommended.” Sir Godfrey Kneller died in 1723, but his influence on portraiture in England endured for several genera tions. Artists continued to be depend ent on standard poses and relied heavily on their assistants and drapery painters. Normally, the clothing and background of a portrait was com pleted by the drapery painter after the artist had painted the face and hands. Such a collaboration is probable in the full-length double portraits of the Yorke children hanging in the Morn ing Room at Swan House. The por traits of Philip and Mary Yorke and Constance and Charlotte Yorke, identified by the plaques on their frames, can be dated around 1740 on the basis of the style of the meticulously treated satin and velvet costumes worn by the four children. Grace and elegance are prominent characteristics of both portraits. In each, one child stands at the left, ex tending a tiny flower to the other child, seated on the right. These genteel and charming children belong, no doubt, to one of the rising English middle class families, among whom group portraiture had become very popular by the middle of the eighteenth century. The faces of the children are rendered in the conservative manner of English portrait painters in the 1740’s trained in the Lely and Kneller traditions. The Yorke children were until recently attributed to Joseph Highmore (1692-1780), a prominent artist of this period among writers, aristocrats and country gentry. However, Alison Lewis, the leading authority on Highmore, feels the treatment of the facial features in the Yorke children’s portraits is too hard and explicit, which is uncharacteristic of this artist’s style. With the reign of George III after 1760, there was, for the first time in England since Charles I, a monarch sympathetic to the arts. Portraiture continued to be the dominant form of painting with patronage extending to the middle classes and poses becom ing more natural. Two portraits of young men in the hall at Swan House reflect the new taste for more casual styles and naturalism. Unfortunately, the artist of each portrait is as yet undetermined, and the identity of the sitters is unknown. A three-quarter length Portrait of a Gentleman depicts a young man in a red frock coat, seated in an arm chair with his legs crossed at the knees. To the left of the figure is a writing table with books stacked on its marble top. The man’s pose and appearance is much more relaxed, partially due to the absence of the restrictive periwig. A portrait of Warren Hastings (1766, National Portrait Gallery, London) by Sir Joshua Reynolds exhibits a similar composition of a man seated at a writing table, which was a popular portraiture motif in eigh teenth century England. The style of clothing and props of the Hastings portrait helps to date the Swan House painting. However, the Atlanta por trait lacks Reynolds’ skillful execu tion. The head in the portrait at Swan House is a sharply defined oval shape lacking realistic contours and facial features. The thighs of the body of the man in the red frock coat tilt up wards in the chair, in contrast to the skillfully foreshortened legs in the Reynolds portrait of Hastings. In the past, the portrait in Atlanta has been incorrectly attributed to Johann Zof fany (1733-1810), an accomplished German-born artist who worked in England in the second half of the eighteenth century. Although the painting cannot belong to Zoffany’s oeuvre, the artist remains uniden tified. The lack of skill exhibited in this portrait suggests that the artist may have been working in the Prov inces, removed from the academic circles of London. The other Portrait of a Gentleman is a bust-size portrait in which the artist includes the man’s right hand resting on the spine of a book entitled, Novum Testum. This painting, a 1977 gift from Mrs. Richard Courts, has been attributed to Francis Cotes (1726-1770), a fashionable portrait painter who worked in London at the time of Reynolds and Thomas Gains borough (1727-1788). The attribution to Cotes is uncertain, but not ruled out. The artist responsible displays a more skillful ability in renderin^the sitter’s youthful features than does the artist of the man in the red frock coat. The individual’s looks in this portrait are infused with a thoughtful expression and conveyed with a greater delicacy of touch. The meticulous treatment of both the lace cravat worn by the sitter and the sit ter’s hand reflect a style present on the Continent in the eighteenth century. The artist may have studied abroad, which was common at this time, or the portrait may have been painted in Rome while the young man was on the “Grand Tour,” a popular eighteenth century sojourn for young Englishmen. Portraiture and landscape are com bined in the full-length painting of a young girl in the breakfast room of Swan House. This painting was known to have been in the Inman’s Ansley Park home. Based on the awkward stiffness of the body and the flat, unconvincing landscape, it appears that the unidentified artist was an amateur. The child’s arms are particularly angular and out of pro portion with the rest of her body. Her dress, characteristic of the style worn by both boys and girls at the end of the eighteenth century, is a low- necked, high-waisted frock of linen or muslin, accentuated by a blue sash at her waist and tiers of ribbon sewn in bands on the skirt. Her round head with its carefully drawn angelic features is adorned with a large cap tied with a blue ribbon. This composi tion of a full figure standing against a landscape became increasingly pop ular in portraiture at the end of the century. There is no basis for specula tion about the artist’s identity at this time. The Swan House portraits are significant in their ability not only to display the development of por- 10
