Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:Fig. 1
George Knapton (1698 - 1778) The Family of Frederick, Prince of Wales Oil on canvas: 350.9 x 461.2 cm. Signed and dated: ‘1751’ Royal Collection, London (RCIN 405741)
Smooth skinned and bright eyed, with suitably rosy cheeks and endearing smiles, the young siblings portrayed in this charming pair of portraits are the picture of health. Shown in separate canvases, but in matching feigned ovals - and indeed their original carved and gilded frames - the brother and sister face one another in their best attire. Painted by George Knapton in the late 1740s, when the artist was one of the most desirable portrait painters then active in London, as acclaimed by George Vertue, these children were likely the progeny of a fellow member of the many intellectual circles in which the artist operated.
The girl, seemingly the younger of the two, wears a low-necked pastel pink silk gown, fastened tightly from behind, which features a muslin apron to its front. Her cropped brown hair is covered by a lace cap that is adorned with a silk ribbon, which matches the pink of her gown. Her older brother, having been breeched, wears clothing more in keeping with adult wear, which includes a satin suit, made up of a waistcoat and coat, beneath which he sports a white chemise, tied at the neck with a black silk ribbon.
These portraits likely date to the late-1740s or early 1750s when Knapton was associated with the court - in particular the Prince of Wales - and the nobility; indeed, the girl in our portrait wears almost the same costume worn by Princess Elizabeth Caroline (1741 – 1759) in Knapton’s monumental group portrait of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales, which is dated 1751 [Fig. 1]. Likewise, the boy wears a costume that closely resembles that worn by Richard Graham in William Hogarth’s The Graham Children [Fig. 2], which is dated 1742. During this time Knapton was gainfully employed by the Society of Dilettanti, of which he was an active member, and painted a series of twenty-three eccentric portraits of its members between 1741 and 1749. It is plausible that another member of the society, which was concerned with the study of the ancient Greco-Roman culture (in a suitably decadent fashion), commissioned Knapton to paint portraits of their children.
George Knapton, the son of a London city merchant, had been apprenticed to Jonathan Richardson Snr. (1667 – 1745), but also attended the St Martin’s Lane Academy. He took an early interest in Italy and connoisseurship associated with the Grand Tour, and so travelled to Italy in 1725, where he remained for seven years. He returned to England in 1732 to work as a portraitist, primarily in pastel but also in oils, and became a founder member of the Society of Dilettanti alongside others he had met in Italy in 1736. He was a close acquaintance of the antiquary George Vertue (1684 – 1756) who, in 1750, assisted him in inspecting the art collections housed in the palaces of Kensington and Hampton Court, as well as Windsor Castle, after the Prince of Wales had requested a detailed survey of the royal collections for his own reference. Knapton gave up painting in 1760, but his connoisseurship was such that he was invited, in 1765, to become the Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, a post he held until his death in 1778.[1]
[1] E. Newby, “George Knapton” from Grove Art Online (2003). Accessible here: https://doi-org.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T046941
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