Thomas Peter Giffard (1735-1776), aged 32
studio of Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1768 (after)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1346 x 984 mm (53 x 38 3/4 in)
Order this imageCollection
Coughton Court, Warwickshire
NT 135566
Caption
Pompeo Batoni was the portrait artist of choice for young aristocrats who wanted to immortalise themselves whilst abroad. This version is probably a studio copy after an original at Chillington Hall. Giffard married, as his second wife, Barbara, the daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, 4th Bt., by his second wife, Catherine Collingwood. He travelled to Italy with an Abbé Hook (possibly Luke Joseph Hook), where they were met several times by Sir William Farington throughout 1765. The sitter is shown with his right arm resting on the pedestal of a bust of Athene, or Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and learning – a nod to his own learning, and appreciation of antiquity.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Thomas Peter Giffard (1735-1776), aged 32, studio of Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), after 1768. A three-quarter-length portrait, standing, turned slightly to the left, his right arm resting on the pedestal of a bust of Minerva, his left on his hip; he wears a blue gold braided coat and blue waistcoat with gold buttons and black cravat. Wearing a sword and holding a tri-cornered hat in his right hand, in the background, a landscape with classical ruins (the Temple of the Sibyl/Vesta at Tivoli). Thomas Peter Giffard (the 22nd) was the son of Peter Giffard of Chillington, Staffordshire, whom he succeeded in 1746, and his third wife, Helena Roberts. He married Barbara Petre (d. 1762) as his first wife and secondly Barbara Throckmorton (d. 1764) and thirdly Frances Stonor. The original of 1768, and that of his son, of the same name of 1784 are at Chillington Hall, Staffordshire.
Provenance
Presumably given to George Throckmorton (1721–1762), eldest brother of the sitter’s deceased second wife, or inherited by the former’s son, Sir John Courtenay Throckmorton, 5th Bt (1754–1819), through his wife Maria Catherine, daughter of the sitter’s first marriage; thence by descent, but included in Christie’s sale, 26 June 1964, bought in at £3,675; purchased by National Trust in 2006
Credit line
Coughton Court, The Throckmorton Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
studio of 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, p.312, no.320