Called Sir Barrington Bourchier
John Verelst (fl. 1698 - London 1734)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1699 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
762 x 635 mm (30 x 25 in)
Order this imageCollection
Beningbrough Hall, North Yorkshire
NT 1191138
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, called Sir Barrington Bourchier II (1672-1700) by John Verelst (The Hague 1648 - London 1734), signed and dated Jo: Verelst. F. 1699. A half-length portrait of a man, wearing a long and voluminous centre-parted wig, a richly draped blue cloak and white cravat. Within a brown oval background. The sitter is probably Sir Barrington Bourchier II, son of Sir Barrington I (NT 1191211) and Judith Bourchier. The portrait is installed overdoor, facing a pendant of Barrington’s wife Mary (nee Compton) by John Verelst (NT 1191137).
Full description
One part of four pairs of overdoor portraits depicting successive male heirs of the Bourchier family and their wives (NT1191150 & NT 1191149; NT1191211 & NT1191210; NT1191138 & NT 1191137; NT1191146 & NT1191142). Three pairs of paintings are mid to late 17th century and thus predate Beningbrough Hall, which was completed in c.1716 by John Bourchier (1684-1736). The 17th century portraits probably hung at the Elizabethan precursor house to this new Hall. An inventory of 1695 and the will (1745) and subsequent codicil (1749) of John Bourchier II (1710-59) all refer to ‘pictures’ and ‘family pictures’, with stipulations in the will and codicil that these were to remain in the Hall, with some specified in Bourchier’s will as 'in the wainscott’. The portraits were installed over the doors of the principal south-facing first and ground floor bedrooms, two flanking the saloon and two the dining room respectively. The installation of the portraits on the first floor thus mirrored that on the ground floor until around 1892, when remodelling of the current Drawing Room removed a partition wall which reconfigured the arrangement of the doors. The portraits run in chronological order and are thought to most likely depict successive Bourchier heirs, beginning with Barrington Bourchier (c.1627-80) and his wife Frances (nee Strickland, 1624-1676) which are installed over the doors of a principal south-facing bedroom flanking the west side of the first-floor Saloon (NT 1191150 and NT 1191149). Mirroring this hang, over the doors of the room immediately to the east of the saloon, are portraits of a man in armour and a woman in blue wearing a richly embroidered cloak affixed at the shoulder (NT 1191211 and NT 1191210). The man in armour has been recently reidentified as Sir Barrington Bourchier (1651-95), son of Barrington Bourchier (c.1627-1680). He was a justice of the peace and a Yorkshire militia officer involved in the deposition of James II and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (see Pat Taylor, ‘The Restoration Bourchiers of Beningbrough Grange, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, vol. 60, 1988). The pendant is therefore likely to depict Margaret Bourchier (nee Hardwick), the second wife of Sir Barrington and mother of John Bourchier (1684-1736) who built Beningbrough Hall (see NT 1191146). In the bedchamber flanking the east side of the ground floor Dining Room are Verelst’s portraits of Sir Barrington II (1672-1700) and his wife Mary Bourchier (nee Compton, d.1700, both signed and dated 1699 (NT 1191138 and NT 1191137). Sir Barrington II was the son of Sir Barrington I (NT 1191211). It was his death (shortly after that of his two young sons and younger brother) that saw the estate pass to younger half-brother, John Bourchier (1684-1736), who is depicted in the last of the four pairs with his wife Mary (NT 1191146 and NT 1191142). These portraits are attributed to Jonathan Richardson the Elder (1667-1745) and may have originally hung over the doors of what was originally the grandest bedchamber in the house (now the eastern half of the drawing room). It was fashionable in the early 18th century to incorporate family portraits into the fixed decoration of a room. It would appear that Beningbrough’s overdoor portraits were arranged to run in chronological order from the Restoration heirs to John Bourchier, builder of the present Hall. As underlined by the will of John Bourchiers son, this dynastic and hierarchical hang appears to have been an intrinsic feature of the Hall, intended to be preserved for generations and has indeed survived successive changes. Compiled from research undertaken by Matthew Constantine, Cultural Heritage Curator, Yorkshire
Provenance
Accepted in lieu of tax from HM Treasury, from the estate of Lady Chesterfield (1878 -1957), in 1958
Marks and inscriptions
Jo: Verelst. F. 1699.
Makers and roles
John Verelst (fl. 1698 - London 1734), artist