Possibly Sanderson Miller (1717-1780)
attributed to Thomas Hudson (Devonshire 1701 – Twickenham 1779)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1750
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
762 x 635 mm (30 x 25 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Lacock, Wiltshire
On show at
Lacock Abbey and the Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire, South West, National Trust
NT 996310
Caption
Sanderson Miller was an amateur architect who designed follies for his friends. At Lacock, he gothicised the house: the Great Hall was decorated and the Gothic gateway erected in 1754-5. During the 1750s, he and Horace Walpole gained the reputation of being the foremost authorities on this style. This portrait is similar, but not identical, to an oval head-and-shoulders of roughly the same period which serves as the frontispiece to An Eighteenth-Century Correspondence, ed. Lilian Dickins & Mary Stanton, London 1910. The picture’s presence at Lacock makes it a reasonable assumption that it is he who is represented.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Possibly Sanderson Miller (1717-1780), attributed to Thomas Hudson (1701 - 1779), circa 1750. A half-length portrait to right wearing a blue coat and waistcoat with gold buttons, lace at neck and wrists, hat under left arm, left hand in waistcoat. Reputedly the gentleman architect employed by John Ivory Talbot to design the present Hall and archway in Gothick style in 1750's.
Provenance
Given by Matilda Theresa Talbot (formerly Gilchrist-Clark) (1871 – 1958), who gave the Abbey, the village of Lacock and the rest of the estate to the National Trust in 1944, along with 96 of the family portraits and other pictures, in 1948
Credit line
Lacock Abbey, The Talbot Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
attributed to Thomas Hudson (Devonshire 1701 – Twickenham 1779), artist British (English) School, artist
References
Hawkes 2015, Will Hawkes, 'Sanderson Miller at Lacock Abbey in National Trust Historic House & Collections Annual (Apollo) 2015, pp. 34 - 43, fig. 1