Sir William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside (1810-1900), in the Inglenook at Cragside
Henry Hetherington Emmerson (Chester-le-Street 1831 – Cullercoats 1895)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1880
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
760 x 630 mm
Place of origin
Northumberland
Order this imageCollection
Cragside, Northumberland
NT 1230258
Caption
Lord Armstrong is seated on one of the sturdy oak settles in the grand stone inglenook in the Dining Room at Cragside. Reading the newspaper, with his dogs at his feet, and a fire blazing in the background, Armstrong is shown as a man of Victorian domesticity, rather than the industrial magnate he had by then become. In his otherwise faithful depiction of the inglenook, Emmerson takes a permissible artistic liberty in shunting the inscription above the fireplace onto two lines instead of one, so as to squeeze it into the picture.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sir William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside (1810-1900), in the Inglenook at Cragside, by Henry Hetherington Emmerson (Chester-le-Street 1831 – Cullercoats 1895), signed bottom left: H H Emmerson, 1880. A full-length portrait of Lord Armstrong as an elderly man, reading a newspaper seated in the Inglenook fireplace in the Dining Room at Cragside (with the motto put onto two lines so as to squeeze it in), with two dogs at his feet.
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by Lord Armstrong (1810-1900); thence by descent; transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919-1987).
Credit line
Cragside, The Armstrong Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to the National Trust in 1977)
Marks and inscriptions
Bottom left: H. H. Emmerson On a label suspended from the frame: Sir William Armstrong / 1810–1900 / H. H. Emmerson 1880
Makers and roles
Henry Hetherington Emmerson (Chester-le-Street 1831 – Cullercoats 1895), artist