Humphry Morice (1723 - 1785)
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1761 - 1762
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1175 x 1728 mm (46 1/4 x 68 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Basildon Park, Berkshire (Accredited Museum)
On show at
Basildon Park, West Berkshire, London and South East, National Trust
NT 267114
Caption
Batoni was one of the most sought after portraitists of his age, particularly amongst English aristocrats on the Grand Tour. Humphry Morice sat for Batoni during his second trip to Italy. He is shown reclining in a wooded landscape with his hunting dogs.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Humphry Morice (1723 - 1785) by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), 1761/2. A full-length portrait, lying in the open air in a woodland setting with hunting dogs. He was a celebrated animal lover. This portrait is an autograph replica, signed and dated 1762, in the collection of Sir James and Lady Graham at Norton Conyers, North Yorkshire. Morice made three trips to Italy and it was on the second that he sat for Batoni in Rome. The Torre Leonina and the Torre dei Venti can be seen in the distance. He purchased Batoni's Diana and Cupid, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 1 April 1762 and this picture was intended as its pendant. This is a unique composition for a portrait of the artist although popular amongst younger Grand Tourists. An oval half-length portrait of Morice is in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut and may be the original sketch from life.
Provenance
Mrs Benedict Eyre, Hartwell House, Aylesbury; her sale, Sotheby's, 26 April 1968 (133); from which bought by RBF; on loan from Augustine Ford, from the collection of Sir Brinsley Ford (1908-1999)
Makers and roles
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), artist
References
Clark and Bowron 1985 Anthony M. Clark & Edgar Peters Bowron (ed.), Pompeo Batoni A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, Oxford 1985, no, 243, p. 284 Ford 1998 Brinsley Ford, John Ingamells, Francis Russell, John Christian, Nicholas Penny, Jennifer Montagu, Howard Coutts, Timothy Wilson & Dudley Dodd, The Ford Collection – II, Walpole Society, Vol. 60, 1998, pp. 91-376, RBF4 Garnett 2015, Oliver Garnett, At Home with Art Treasures from the Ford Collection at Basildon Park, National Trust, 2015, pp. 14-15