Francis Whithed (1719-1751)
Rosalba Carriera (Venice 1673 - Venice 1757)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1741
Materials
Pastel on paper
Measurements
(22 1/2 x 19 3/4 in) 571 x 502 mm
Order this imageCollection
Vyne Estate, Hampshire
NT 718711
Caption
Rosalba Carriera was at the forefront of pastel’s emergence as a fully developed art form in the early 18th century, ultimately becoming its most famous and commercially successful practitioner. Even 100 years after her death, she was still being hailed as ‘the queen of pastel’. Based in her native Venice, she established an international clientele for her works and was celebrated for her unprecedented virtuosity. Using both wet and dry sticks, she deftly worked their bright pigments with paintbrushes, tiny combs, rolled-up paper and her fingertips. Carriera developed her shimmering effects just as the taste of European elites in the visual arts was turning towards a greater luminosity, intimacy and sensuous lightness of touch. Through considerable business acumen and professional ambition, she not only exploited this new direction in art – now referred to as Rococo – but also played a significant part in shaping it. In Britain her legacy survives principally in the works brought home by grand tourists – wealthy young men completing their education with an Italian ‘gap year’. The more discerning of these might visit Carriera’s comfortable studio and acquire one of her allegorical or character studies, perhaps depicting a young woman in the typical dress of the Tyrolean Alps – then one of the main routes between Britain and the Italian peninsula. Others might commission a portrait of themselves in extravagant Venetian fashions as a souvenir of their time in a city notorious for its parties and casinos. Her rarer portrait drawings, in simple chalk or ink, reveal the acute character observation that underpins her more flamboyant pastel creations. Aware of the great distances over which her fragile pastels were transported, Carriera would habitually slip a little print of the three Magi behind their stretchers as a protective talisman. Examples of these have recently been identified or discovered with works at Tatton Park and The Vyne – a testament both to their maker’s professional care and her spiritual life.
Summary
Pastel on paper, Francis Whithed (1719-1751) by Rosalba Carriera (Venice 1675 - Venice 1757), 1741. A half-length portrait, turned to the left, gazing at the spectator, wearing a blue coat embroidered with gold braid, white waistcoat embroidered with gold, white frilled shirt. Francis Whithead was the son of Alexander Thistlethwayte and Mary Whithed; assumed the name of Whithed on recovering, as heir to his uncle Richard Norton, the Southwick estate which had previously been bequeathed to the government. He was a cousin of John Chute, who adopted him. They travelled together widely on the continent, and it was probably when they were in Venice in 1741 that this portrait was drawn (see entry for Rosalba's drawing of Chute, done in July 1741. A drawing of Whithed by Rosalba was included with this drawing in the Strawberry Hill sale). It was not until 1746 that they returned from Italy. Whithed died at the Vyne five years later. In a letter to John Chute from Cambridge (October 1746) Thomas Gray described Whithed as 'a fine young personage in a coat all over spangles, just come over from the tour of Europe to take possession and be married ...' (He was engaged to Margaret Nichol); and in a second letter to Chute (addressed to Mr Whithed at Southwick Park near Fareham in Hampshire'). Gray continues his praise of Whithed as 'the finest young man that ever was imported'. And Horace Walpole writes to Mann (4th November 1746) on the return of the travellers from Venice that 'Mr Whithed is infinitely improved'.
Provenance
In the Dining Room by the 1880s.
Makers and roles
Rosalba Carriera (Venice 1673 - Venice 1757), artist
Exhibition history
Souvenirs of the Grand Tour, Wildenstein & Co., London, 1982, no.18
References
Sani 1988, Bernardina Sani, Rosalba Carriera, 1988, no. 336, p. 321 & fig. 294 Conroy, Rachel, Women Artists and Designers at the National Trust, 2025, pp. 54-55