Sir Robert Throckmorton, 4th Bt (1702-1791)
Nicolas de Largillière (Paris 1656 - Paris 1746)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1728 - 1729
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1365 x 1048 mm (53 3/4 x 41 1/4 in)
Place of origin
France
Order this imageCollection
Coughton Court, Warwickshire
NT 135620
Caption
This is one of Nicolas de Largillière’s most striking portraits of a male subject. Sir Robert Throckmorton is portrayed wearing a blue coat with gold embroidery, a breast-plate lined with orange cloth and a purple fur-lined cloak held around his hips. It is one of four commissioned by the sitter from Largillière in Paris in 1729. The other three portraits are of Sir Robert’s female relatives who were nuns of the Dominican order.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sir Robert Throckmorton, 4th Bt (1702-1791) by Nicolas de Largillière (Paris 1656 – Paris 1746) , inscribed top right, in yellow: SR. ROBT. THROCKMORTON BART. / BORN. 1702. / DIED. 1791 and inscribed, presumably copying original signature, on reverse: Peint par N. de Largilliere 1729. A three-quarter-length portrait, standing, turned to left, gazing at spectator, in a landscape. Wearing a blue coat with gold embroidery, breast-plate lined with orange cloth, long powdered wig with purple bow, his gloved left hand on his hip, his right arm outstretched; a purple fur-lined cloak held around his hips. See inv. no. 135583 for another family portrait commissioned from Largillière around the same time.
Provenance
Commissioned by the sitter in Paris in 1728 or the second half of 1729, and placed in the Parlour, Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire; moved to Coughton Court by 1855 (ms. inv., p.10); thence by descent to Sir Robert Throckmorton, 11th Bt (1908–1989), until put up for auction by the Throckmorton Trustees at Christie’s, 26 June 1964, lot 70: bought in at £57,750; bought by the Ministry of Works and subsequently loaned to the National Trust.
Credit line
Coughton Court, The Throckmorton Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: (transcribed from the back of the original canvas; original spelling: Largillierre?) on lining canvas: Peint par N. de Largillière, 1729.
Makers and roles
Nicolas de Largillière (Paris 1656 - Paris 1746), artist
Exhibition history
The Treasure Houses of Britain, National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA, 1985 - 1986, no.148
References
Vertue, ‘Notebooks: Vol. V’, The Walpole Society, vol. XXVI, 1937–38, p.105 Sitwell 1968 S. Sitwell, ‘Pleasures of the Senses’, Apollo, LXXXVII, 1968, p.132, fig. 8 Lines c.1970: Charles Lines, Coughton Court and The Throckmorton Story, Manchester, s.d [c.1970], p. 27 & illus. p. 22 Rosenfeld 1981 Myra Nan Rosenfeld, Largillierre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait, 1981, no. 56, pp.273-76 Hemingway & Haworth, 1993: Vincent Hemingway & Jeffrey Haworth, Coughton Court and the Throckmortons, Norwich 1993, pp.17 & 18 and illus. p. 12 Hemingway & Haworth 1997 Vincent Hemingway & Jeffrey Haworth, Coughton Court and the Throckmortons, Norwich, 1993;revised edition, 1997, p. 9 & illus. p. 32