Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, 1815/1817

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 77 x 63.7 cm (30 5/16 x 25 1/16 in.)

framed: 99 x 85.7 x 7.6 cm (39 x 33 3/4 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the Coe Foundation

Accession Number

1961.5.1

Artists / Makers

Sir William Beechey (artist) British, 1753 - 1839

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

The artist; purchased February 1817 by Mr. Hall(?).[1] Major Campbell. (John Levy Galleries, New York), 1934; purchased by Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Jones, Jr. [1868-1928], Sewickley Heights, Pennsylvania; (sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 4-5 December 1941, 1st day, no. 22); William R. Coe [1869-1955], Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York; Coe Foundation, New York; gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] There were four recorded versions of this portrait. One remained in Beechey's possession, and was purchased by the Duke of Wellington at the sale following the artist's death. This is now at Apsley House, London. Another was bought from Beechey for fifty guineas, the price of the original, by a Mr. Hall, who paid for it in February 1917. The Washington [NGA] picture is inferior in quality to the version at Apsley House, which is more solidly modeled and more firmly drawn, and may well be the portrait acquired by Hall, probably painted to order.

Associated Names

Campbell, Major
Coe Foundation
Coe, William Robertson
Hall, Mr.
John Levy Galleries
Jones, Jr., Benjamin Franklin, Mrs.
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc.

Exhibition History

1961: Extended loan for use by Ambassador David K.E. Bruce, U.S. Embassy residence, London, England, 1961-1969.

1972: Extended loan for use by Caspar Weinberger, Director of the Budget and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C., 1972-1975.

1978: Extended loan for use by the U.S. Embassy, London, England, 1978-

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is twill woven; it has been lined. The ground is off-white, fairly thickly applied, almost masking the weave of the canvas. The painting is executed in quite thick, opaque layers with impasto in the highlights; there is a transparent red glaze in the uniform. There is fairly extensive discolored retouching, principally in the glazed areas of the uniform, but also, most disturbingly, in the sitter's right cheek, to cover drying craquelure (suggestive of underlayers not having been allowed to dry properly before the upper layers were applied). The varnish has discolored yellow to a significant degree.

Bibliography

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 11, as General Sir Thomas Picton.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 4, repro., as General Sir Thomas Picton.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 20, repro., as General Sir Thomas Picton.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 38, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 10-12, repro. 11.