Henry Lyte (1727 - 1791)
Anton Raphael Mengs (Aussig 1728 – Rome 1779)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1758
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
978 x 736 mm
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 267117
Caption
Anton Raphael Mengs painted portraits of English aristocrats on the Grand Tour in Rome in direct competition with Pompeo Batoni in the 1750s. In this half-length portrait, Henry Lyte is shown holding a book, his finger marking a page, to indicate that he is a scholar. Lyte was in Italy acting as tutor and guide to the 17-year-old John, Lord Brudenell, who was painted by Mengs at the same time.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Henry Lyte (1727-91) by Anton Raphael Mengs (Aussig 1728–Rome 1779), 1758, inscribed, lower right, by a later hand: Henry Lyte Esqr. Sub Preceptor and Master of the Roll and Privy Purse H.R.H. the/ Prince of Wales, afterwards George the 4th/ and Auditor of the Duchy of Cornwall/ Died 1791/ By Raphael Mengs. In 1751 Henry Lyte, a Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge from 1749 to 1763, acted as tutor to the seventeen-year-old John Brudenell (1735-70) on his Grand Tour of France and Italy. They arrived at Rome in April 1756 and stayed for a month before continuing to Naples for a tour of southern Italy which lasted almost two years. They both sat to Mengs on their second visit to Rome, around August 1758. Lord Brudenell’s full-length portrait, which is now in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House, was mentioned by Lyte in a letter to his charge’s father Lord Cardigan (later 3rd Duke of Montagu) but (modestly) he did not mention his own more informal one. Another Mengs portrait of Lyte is in a German private collection (exhibited at Kenwood, Anton Raphael Mengs and his British Patrons, 1993).
Provenance
Sotheby's, Anonymous sale, 28 April 1948 (57); Sotheby's Anonymous sale, 4 November 1953 (73); bought by Colnaghi's on behalf of Sir Brinsley Ford and by descent to Augustine Ford. Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from Augustine Ford and allocated to the National Trust for Osterley, 2023.
Marks and inscriptions
Lower right, by a later hand:: Henry Lyte Esqr. Sub Preceptor and Master of the Rolh / and Privy Purse H.R.H. the / Prince of Wales, afterwards George the 4th / and Auditor of the Duchy of Cornwall / Died 1791 / By Raphael Mengs
Makers and roles
Anton Raphael Mengs (Aussig 1728 – Rome 1779), artist
References
Anton Raphael Mengs and his British Patrons (ed. Steffi Roettgen) exh. cat., Kenwood, London, 1993, no. 11 Ford 1998 Brinsley Ford, John Ingamells, Francis Russell, John Christian, Nicholas Penny, Jennifer Montagu, Howard Coutts, Timothy Wilson & Dudley Dodd, The Ford Collection – II, Walpole Society, Vol. 60, 1998, pp. 91-376, pp. 117, 134–5, 154 (RBF52) Roettgen 1999 -2003 Steffi Roettgen, Anton Raphael Mengs, 1728–1779, vol. 1: Das malerische und zeichnerische Werk, Hirmer, Munich, 1999 Garnett 2015: Oliver Garnett, At Home with Art Treasures from the Ford Collection at Basildon Park, National Trust, 2015, p. 28