Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, PC, MP, FRS (1720-1790)
Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh 1713 - Dover 1784)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1741 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
(50 x 40 in) 1250 x 1110 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 207812.2
Caption
This picture hangs a Wimpole, with its pendant, of the sitter’s wife of one year, Lady Jemima Campbell (later Marchioness Grey in her own right). The pendant was painted some six months after the present portrait, in the latter half of 1741, with the sitter likewise in ‘van Dyck’ dress, and bears a matching inscription. The Yorkes were among Ramsay’s most significant early patrons. The result of Philip Yorke’s visit to Ramsay’s studio was not only the present portrait, but another of him in a white and gold waistcoat and brown coat, holding his hat, which left Wimpole in the 1880s, and has not since been traced. The present picture, in ‘van Dyck’ dress, represents an interesting example of Ramsay adopting a pose and costume more usually associated with his older rival, Thomas Hudson, but imparting a gentle humanity to their wearer that was outside the latter’s range.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, PC, MP, FRS (1720-1790) by Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh 1713 - Dover 1784), signed on the plinth A. Ramsay 1741. Inscribed with the identity of the sitter: The Honble. Philip Yorke Eldest Son of the Right/ Honble. Philip Lord High/ Chancellor of Great Britain married Ano. 1740 / to Jemima Marchioness Great Daughter of / John Lord Glenorchy. A portrait of a young man, three-quarter length, standing, turned three-quarters to right, gazing at spectator, wearing a russet silk ‘Van Dyck’ costume, and scarlet velvet hose and cloak; white silk, lace-edged, shoulder collar, slashed sleeves showing a white silk shirt beneath, with white cuffs edged with lace; black shoulder-length hair, brushed back from broad brow; his right arm resting on a plinth at the left with a pier behind, and with cloudy sky to the right. The Hon. Philip Yorke, eldest son of the Right Hon Philip Lord Hardwicke, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, married in 1740 to Jemima, Marchioness Grey, daughter of John, Lord Glenorchy. In January 1741 Thomas Birch took the newly wed sitters to Ramsay's studio in Covent Garden and the portraits, with the sitters in 'Vandyke' masquerade dress, were painted for the bride's father, the 3rd Earl of Breadalbane, at whose seat, Taymouth Castle, they were inscribed and with whose descendants they remained until 1925. Bought at auction in July 1998, with the aid of a grant from the NA-CF (Art Fund), this portrait was thus reunited with its pendant - the sitter's wife, who was Marchioness Grey in her own right. The pair had been sundered at an auction in 1925 and Mrs Bambridge had acquired Marchioness Grey in 1956.
Provenance
By family descent to John Campbell, 2nd Marquess of Breadalbane (1796 - 1862), Taymouth Castle; Breadalbane sale, Lt- Colonel T.G. Breadalbane-Morgan-Grenville-Gavin (1891 - 1965) of Langton, Duns, Berwicks., Christie's, 27 March 1925 (123), bought Smith; Montague L. Meyer sale, Sotheby's, 3 April 1946 (127), bought Terry; Bonhams, 29 November 1987 (62), bought Agnew, Antony Boynton Wood, Hollin Hall, North Yorkshire; his estate sale Christie's 16 July 1998 (10); purchased by the National Trust with contributions from National Art Collections Fund (The Art Fund) and V&A Purchase Fund, 1998
Credit line
Wimpole, The Yorke Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh 1713 - Dover 1784), artist
References
Smart and Ingamells 1999 Alastair Smart and John Ingamells (ed.), Allan Ramsay A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London, Yale, 1999, no. 248, fig. 82