Newton House from the East
British (Welsh) School
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1710 - circa 1720
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
998 mm (Height); 1695 mm (Width)
Place of origin
Wales
Order this imageCollection
Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire
NT 869192
Summary
Oil paint on canvas, Newton House from the East, Welsh School, c. 1710-20. A view of Newton House from the east, with a male figure dressed in red and out hawking, walking along a path in the foreground at centre. The figure probably represents Griffith Rice (1667-1729), MP for Carmarthenshire (1701-10), who inherited the Dinefwr estate in the 17th century. With outbuildings behind and to the left of the house. One of a set of four views (NT 869191-869194). Analysis of a paint sample taken from the background landscape in the picture revealed the presence of Prussian Blue, a type of dark blue pigment not seen in British painting until 1710. Discovery of Prussian Blue provides the earliest date after which this picture and its companions could have been painted. With this date in mind, it is also possible that the estate portraits were commissioned to mark Rice’s retirement from Parliament and his return, on a more permanent basis, to his country estate at Newton.
Provenance
By descent; acquired by the National Trust from Richard Charles Uryan Rhys, 9th Baron Dynevor (1935 – 2008), with the aid of the NHMF in 1997
Credit line
Newton House, Dinefwr, The Dynevor Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
British (Welsh) School, artist
References
Major Francis Jones, Portraits and Pictures in Old Carmarthenshire Houses - Joseph Gulston (1745 -1786), The Carmarthenshire Historian, (ed. E. Vernon Jones), vol.V, 1968 Harris 1979 John Harris, The Artist and the Country House. A History of Country House and Garden View Painting in Britain 1540-1870, London 1979, no. 80b