Lieutenant, later Captain, Paul Henry Ourry, MP (1719-1783) with an enslaved child known as 'Jersey' (dates unknown)
Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1748
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in)
Place of origin
Devon
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 872160
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lieutenant, later Captain, Paul Henry Ourry, MP (1719–83) with an enslaved child known as 'Jersey' (dates unknown) by Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792), circa 1748. A three-quarter-length portrait of the father-in-law of Montagu Edmund Parker, brother of Lord Boringdon. He is almost facing, in naval uniform, a dark blue coat with a cocked black hat under his arm, and left hand in his trouser pocket. He looks imperiously into the distance, while to his right, a child, known as 'Jersey', gazes upward at him and hands him a sword. The child wears a white turban and blue uniform with red facings, collar and cuffs.
Full description
Reynolds's portrait depicts naval officer Paul Henry Ourry (1723–1792) accompanied by a enslaved child, dressed as a page and known as 'Jersey'. The portrait of Ourry as a naval officer, his hand on his sword, gazing authoritatively in the distance, is a celebration of Britain's maritime prowess. Painted around 1748, it dates to the period Ourry served on HMS Salisbury. Of the inclusion of a young child, known as 'Jersey', the art historian David Bindman writes '[his presence] suggests the new horizons opening in the time of an emergent British empire through trade in distant ... lands, which brought riches as new knowledge to the nation under the aegis of such gallant sailors.' [1]. The presence of 'Jersey', dressed as a page, reflects the influence of Titian's 1520s painting of Laura Dianti (Kisters Collection, Switzerland) which was in the Orléans collection in Paris during Reynolds's lifetime and of which Reynolds may have seen an engraving. The portrait of Laura Dianti attended by a young Black child is recognised to have established an enduring European portrait convention in which named, white sitters are attended to and gazed at by Black figures. What distinguishes this portrait from the many other eighteenth-century portraits of this type that exist is. as David Bindman observes, 'one primary – perhaps the primary – element of identification as a subject: a name of his own, Jersey, though its Englishness makes it clear that it was one imposed by the owner or master/mistress.' [2] This portrait was commissioned by the Corporation of Plympton which was responsible for the parliamentary borough of Plympton Erle in Devon. The Corporation also commissioned Reynolds to paint a matching portrait of Captain George Edgcumbe (National Maritime Museum), with HMS Salisbury shown in the distance, of which Edgcumbe was captain and Ourry was first lieutenant. Ourry and Edgcumbe were also related by marriage to the wealthy Trebys of Plympton, who, along with the Edgcumbes, controlled the borough of Plympton. The two portraits were displayed together in the dining room of the Mayoralty House in Plympton, where in 1809 David Wilkie remarked that they ‘were, for composition, as fine as anything [Reynolds] ever did afterwards’. [3] (Gabriella de la Rosa, November 2020) Notes [1] David Bindman, 'Subjectivity and Slavery in Portraiture' in Slave Portraiture in the Atlantic World, eds. by Agnes Lugo-Ortiz and Angela Rosenthal, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 75. [2] Ibid. [2] See object record for Reynolds's portrait of Captain the Honourable George Edgcumbe, 1720-95, BHC2677, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
Provenance
Painted for the Corporation of Plympton for 4 gns in c.1748; acquired by the Treby family of Plympton, presumably after the disfranchisement of the Borough in 1832; acquired in c.1854 by Montagu Edmund Newcombe Parker; thence by descent; accepted by the Treasury in part payment of death-duties from the executors of Edmund Robert Parker, 4th Earl of Morley (1877-1951) and transferred to the Trust in 1957.
Makers and roles
Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792), artist
References
Cotton 1856 W.Cotton, Reynolds, 1856, p.125 Graves and Cronin 1899-1901 Algernon Graves and W.V.Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 4 vols, London 1899-1901, Vol.II, p.714 Waterhouse 1941 Ellis K. Waterhouse, Reynolds, London, 1941, p.37, pl.12 Saltram, Devon, 1967 The Saltram Collection, Plympton, Devon [National Trust; F. St. John Gore], 1967, 1967, pp 34-35; 1977, pp.10, 38 p.38 T (270) Mannings 2000: David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings. The Subject Pictures catalogued by Martin Postle, New Haven & London 2000, 1372