Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh, 1st Bt, MP (1714-1774) with Wreaths of Fruit and Corn
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1751 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
965 x 723 mm (38 x 28½ in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Uppark House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 138281
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh, 1st Bt, MP (1714-1774) with Wreaths of Fruit and Corn by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), signed and dated, bottom right: P. B. 1751 (Rome). A half-length portrait, he holds a wreath of figs and cherries in his right hand, a wreath of corn in his left. After buying Uppark in 1747, he and his wife Sarah spent the years 1749-51 on a Grand Tour of France and Italy, accompanied by his brother Utrick and his future wife Katherine, and Sarah's brother Benjamin Lethieullier and half-brother Lascelles Iremonger. In Rome they were all painted (in three cases twice) by Batoni, and so were among his earliest and most important British patrons.
Provenance
Possibly commissioned by the sitter's brother-in-law, Benjamin Lethieullier (1728/9-1797); thence possibly by bequest to Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, 2nd Bt (1754-1846); thence by descent and inheritance, until accepted in lieu of tax on the death of Admiral the Hon. Sir Herbert Meade-Fetherstonhaugh (1875-1964) in 1965 and transferred to the National Trust by the Treasury in September 1990
Credit line
Uppark, The Fetherstonhaugh Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
P B 1751 (signed and dated on pilaster at right)
Makers and roles
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), artist
References
Pompeo Batoni and his British Patrons, exh. cat. (listed by Edgar Peters Bowron & Francis Russell), Kenwood House, Hampstead, London 8 June - 30 August, 1982, p.91, no.54 or 55 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, no.156, p.253, & pl.147