Sir Bruce Chichester, 2nd Bt Chichester of Arlington (1842-1881), and his Sister, Caroline, later Lady Clay (1839 -1873), as children
John Edgar Williams (fl.1846 - 1883)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1849 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2540x 2134 mm (100 x 84 in)
Order this imageCollection
Arlington Court, Devon
NT 987418
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sir Bruce Chichester, 2nd Bt (1842 - 1883), and his Sister, Caroline Chichester, later Lady Clay (b.1839), as children by John Edgar Williams (fl. 1846 -1883), signed bottom right: J.E. WILLIAMS 1849. Both figures are full-length, wearing Greek (or Turkish) [Levantine] costume; he is seated on a donkey on the right and she is standing at its head to the left, feeding the donkey some grass. They both have blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. Sir Bruce Chichester was the son of Sir John Palmer Bruce Chichester, 1st Bt and Caroline Thistlethwayte, daughter of Thomas Thystlethwayte of Southwick Park, Hampshire; married Rosalie Amelia Chamberlayne, daughter of Thomas Chamberlayne of Cranbury Park, Hampshire. Caroline Elizabeth Chichester was the daughter of Sir John Palmer Bruce Chichester, 1st Bt. She married Lt-Col. Sir George Clay, son of Sir William Clay, 1st Bt and Harriet Dickason, on 8 March 1862. She died on 6 April 1873. She had two children: Lilian Caroline Georgiana Clay (d. 16 Feb 1918) and Rosalie Violet Marion Clay. Although this picture is often said to show the children dressed in Turkish costume, it would be more accurate to say that it shows them – like so many of Liotard’s sitters, drawn when he was in Constantinople – in the costume of the Levant: that of the Greek communities in Asia Minor. It is not at the moment known why they should have been shown so, but it seems likely that Sir John, like this son Bruce after him, enjoyed cruising in the Mediterranean (his early career had, after all, been in the Navy), and, having taken his family with him, decided to have them painted after his return, in costumes acquired on the voyage: Caroline's still survives at Arlington. The 1840s were the years in which an interest in the Near East prompted a number of British artists to travel there – notably David Roberts (1838; exhibiting pictures based on this from 1840 onwards), David Wilkie (1840–41), J. F. Lewis (1840–1851), and William James Müller (1843) – see the exhibition catalogue The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Paintings, Yale Center for British Art, Tate Britain, 2008–9. There is no evidence for the artist of this picture, John Edgar Williams, having visited the East.
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Miss Rosalie Chichester (1865 – 1949) in 1949
Credit line
Arlington Court, The Chichester Collection ( National Trust)
Makers and roles
John Edgar Williams (fl.1846 - 1883), artist