The Byres Family
Franciszek Smuglewicz (Warsaw 1745 - Vilnius 1807)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1776 - 1779
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
330 x 394 mm
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 267119
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Byres Family by Franciszek Smuglewicz (Warsaw 1745 - Vilnius 1807), circa 1776-79. James Byres came from an Aberdeenshire Jacobite family. He left Scotland after the failure of the 1745 Rising and was educated in France. In Rome by 1758, he trained first as a painter and then as an architect. He also established himself as a leading art dealer and professional tour guide in the city until 1790. The portrait group shows Byres’ mother, Janet Moir (1711-87), seated at centre, with her husband Patrick Byres of Tonley, who stands to her left dressed in green. Lapdogs attend them. James Byres, in a grey coat and mustard waistcoat, stands with his hand resting on his mother's chair whilst conversing with his sister Isabella, Mrs Robert Sandilands. Her husband had died in 1775 and she is shown in mourning dress. At right, in a red suit, is Byres’s business partner, the engraver Christopher Norton (?1738-1799). The group is gathered on a terrace with fluted columns and red and green drapery which are pulled back to show a distant of view of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome. Another portrait of the Byres family was painted by Smuglewicz around the same time; it is today in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (PG 2601). Smuglewicz was born in Warsaw, Poland, but moved to Rome in 1763 where he studied under the Austrian painter Anton Maron and became fascinated by archaeological excavations, making copies of antique frescoes. Smuglewicz was a close associate of Byres who, amongst other things, provided archaeological drawings for Byres's partner Christopher Norton. He returned to Warsaw in 1784 where he opened a painting school. He settled in Vilnius in 1797, as the director of the new School of Fine Arts and produced large altarpieces and Polish historical scenes.
Provenance
Recorded in the Byres collection in 1790; Christie's 18 October 1957 (148) as Arthur Devis; bought by J. M. Haining; Leger Galleries from whom bought as Wickstead 17 February 1958 by 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.
Makers and roles
Franciszek Smuglewicz (Warsaw 1745 - Vilnius 1807), artist previously catalogued as by Arthur Devis (Preston 1712 - London 1787) , artist previously catalogued as by Philip Wickstead (fl.1763 - 1786) (d. Jamaica 1790), artist
References
Ford 1984 Brinsley Ford, The Byres Family by Franciszek Smuglewicsz, National Art-Collections Fund Review, 1984, pp.112-4 Artist and Patron in the North East, Aberdeen Art Gallery, 1975, 18 Ford 1974 Brinsley Ford, ‘James Byres, Principal Antiquarian for the English Visitors to Rome’. Apollo XCIX, June 1974, pp.446–61 Travels in Italy 1776 - 1783, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 1988, 21 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, p.155, RBF54 Garnett 2015: Oliver Garnett, At Home with Art Treasures from the Ford Collection at Basildon Park, National Trust, 2015, p.36