7b 86-B 13012 EXHIBITION of . . . PEEL HEIRLOOMS. i GRAVES' GALLERIES. 26,h Mcy to 25ih Jul,. 1908. 6. PALL MALL, S.W. FIN E^AR TS yA^^ THE PEEL HEIRLOOMS. To say that the Peel heirlooms, now on view at Messrs. Graves's galleries, interest us from the historic rather than the artistic side is perhaps, after all, a tribute to Sir Thomas Lawrence, implying that we see here his great talent for portraiture with a minimum of the specious and cloying attractiveness frequent in his portraits of women and children. William Scott, Baron Stowell, the great maritime lawyer, is the subject of the finest of these pictures — a crusty and to outward seeming rather fossilized old man, yet full of the inward force of concentrated intelligence and a will-power so imposing that before it the painter dropped his dandyism altogether. If none of the other pictures has the intense sincerity of this, several make us feel that since Van Dyck no painter in England has had a greater power of delineating the features of his sitters than Lawrence at his best. The Duke of Wellington has this firm, delicate delineation, and not much else ; but historically there is no quality on which we set a higher price. In The Earl of Liverpool the handling is blunter, but it is as capable a rendering of a personality less finely fibred. Lord Eldon, again, shows a character with which Lawrence might hardly be expected to sympathize — that of a shrewd, benevolent old man too wise to be merely brilliant. But the pictiu'e is most sympathetically painted, and reminds- us how we misjudge Lawrence if we measure him by his most applauded performances. The portrait of Lord Ellenhorough shows a sitter who might easily have been distorted into one of the common curly and magni- ficent tributes to masculine vanity. Florid and debonair, the Colonial Governor of days when, perhaps more than now, ad- ministrative and social brilliance went together, is happy in being presented by a sober and competent painter like Frederick Richard Say rather than by the cleverer Sir Thomas, who would have scarcely resisted the temptation to embroider his theme. Another good portrait by Say is The Duke of Buccleu^h, with its odd resem- blance to French painting of a rather later date. Hoare's Earl of Chatham has also a distinctly Gallic flavour. Among these men of action Southey looks a little out- classed — a showy, plausible man who met Lawrence half way in his taste for a cheaply handsome presence. Mil AIHD ARTISTS. ■ ^ The Peel Heirlooms, ^ The exhibition of Peel heirlooiM at Messrs. Graves's Galleries is an event of considerable historical and artistic im- portance. This group of fine portraits, many of them full-lengths, is in the first place interesting on account of the sitters they represent. Here are vivid present- ments of Canning (painted only a yeac before his death), the Duke of Wellington, of of a coifienr ©rmanicure, Lawrence rdtreals a worfhier Aide of hi •l^atirre in his men's portraits. His charac- ter is, indeed, sadly lacking in all the finer ^•quaUties of manhood ; he has no earnest- ainess, no occasional gleam of insight, no tttouch of humor. The view he takes of the T statesman, generals, and authors he painted g^is an essentially commonplace one. H* sees no more of their real greatness than *^an over-dressed and be-roaged middle^ ■^aged chatterer at a five o'clock tea« d party would sea To him Canning it p)n3t a respectable and well-dressed public 1^ speaker, Wellington a short and rather bumptious and self-consciotis army man f^the elder Peel and Lord Eldon healthy* J- prosperous, and middle-aged society rneu! ^ But while Lawrence's point of view has all ^the tantalising insufficiency of current society gossip, it has behind it a certain ballast of general good sense and the savmg grace of vivid first-hand observation t £ Somebody one© eaid that Opie's portraits were all alike — were bare identity seen through an unpleasant medium — ^but no Pone could reproach Lawrence for not in- bdividualising his men sitters. However t lacking in penetration his vision tmay have been, he had evolved V)in his later works an admirably clear hand forcible method of representing the ccommonplace facts of sight. For days after gi had visited the Graves Galleries I was f haunted with visions of fat fleshly hands, psolidly substantial and distressingly real, c which I had seen there. Lawrence had in ta large measure the mere painter's gift of ijrealising the things of sight. The heads of yLord Eldon and the two Peels are triumphs ]in this way. That works like these, so 1 immensely fine from the bare visual i^point of view, leave us with a feeling o[ slight dissatisfaction, helps to prove that we have now learnt to demand something i more from the artist than the bare power I of representing on aflat surface the ordi- -nary facts of sight; that we feel justified Ij in demanding the exercise of some of tliose powers which the artist may share with the ! poet and thinker, .- — ft. iTi ];,, WTTTTS'S HOOMR KING-STREET. ST. JAMES'S-SQUARE, The full-length PORTE^ of the DUKE of^WKLLmGTON Sir Thomas Lawreuce^and a PORTRAIT of the Poet SOUTHEY, by the same artist, direction of ^t^e Trustees of the Settled feEetatea of Blr Robert Peel Bart, j^^^. 1%/r ESSRS. ROBINSON, FISSBTl, and Co. are Ivl instructed to SELL the above, at their Galleries, on Thuw- dayTNovember 26th. May be viewed three days prior.) EXHIBITION . . OF . . PEEL HEIRLOOMS. 1 EARL OF LIVERPOOL (1770-1828), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR,A. Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl. Statesman. Foreign Secretary under Addington, 1 801-3. Created Baron Hawkesbury, 1803 ; Home Secretary and leader in Upper House in Pitt's Second Ministry, 1804-6; again Home Secretary, 1807-9 I succeeded to Earldom, 1808 ; Secretary for War and Colonies under Perceval, 1809-12 ; Premier, 1812-27 ; vigorously supported Wellington in the Peninsula ; carried on War with the United States ; sent Napoleon to St. Helena. ,^ ^- 2 LORD BROUGHAM (1778-1868), By R. PICKERSGILL, R.A. Lord Chancellor ; educated at Edinburgh ; contributed three articles to first number of Edinhiirgh Review ; called to Bar, 1808 ; M.P. for Camelford, 1810; Attorney-General, 1820; defended Queen Caroline during her trial, 1820 ; elevated to the Peerage, 1830 ; made great speech on second reading of the Reform Bill, 183 1. His critical, historical and miscellaneous writings were published under his own direction in a collected edition of ct^r^^ 1 1 volumes. Exhibited Royal Academy, 1851, 3 FRANCES HORNER (1778-1817), By WM. OWEN, Politician ; studied at Edinburgh ; Scottish Bar, 1800 ; EngHsh Bar, 1807 ; contributed to first number of Edinburgh Review^ 1802 ; M.P. for St. Ives, 1806 ; took part in debates on Corn Laws and Negro Slavery, 181 3- 1 5 ; Translated Euler's Elements of Algebra, 1797. 4 SIR ROBERT PEEL, Bart, (1750-1830), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR,A, First Baronet. Manufacturer ; son of Robert Peel, parent of the Calico Printing Industry in Lancashire ; applied the discoveries of Arkwright and Hargreaves in his business ; M.P. for Tamworth, 1790, and took an interest in industrial and financial measures ; carried an Act (1802) for the preservation of health of apprentices and others, which was the forerunner ^ / yCt'-^'^t^ factory reform. ' Exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1826. 5 LADY PEEL (Seated in the Park), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, Wife of First Sir Robert Peel. 6 SIR ROBERT PEEL, Bart. (1788-1850), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P,R,A, Second Baronet. Statesman. Under-Secretary of War and the Colonies, 18 10- 1 81 2. Established the peace preservation police. Becanie Premier, 1834. Repealed the Corn Laws in 1846. Thrown from his horse in Constitution Hill, 29th June, 1850, and died from his injuries on 2nd July. 7 WM. HUSKISSON (1770-1830), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A, Statesman ; Under-Secretary for War, 1795 ; Secretary to the Treasury under Pitt, 1804-5, and Portland, 1807-9 I resigned with Canning, 1809 ; was killed by being run over at opening of Manchester and Liverpool 8 GEORGE CANNING (1770-1827), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR.A. Statesman. In horror of French Revolution attached himself to William Pitt, 1793; M.P. for Newport, 1794; Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Pitt's Administration, 1796-9 ; refused office in Granville's Administration ; Foreign Secretary in Portland Administration in 1807 ; planned seizure of Danish fleet, September, 1807 ; dissatisfied with Castlereagh's policy at War Office, 1808 : fought duel with Castlereagh and resigned office September, 1809 ; refused office under Spencer Perceval, 1809 ; refused Foreign Office under Lord Liverpool in 181 2 ; M.P. for Liverpool, 1812-22 ; Foreign Secretary under Liverpool Administration, 1822 ; made Premier by George IV. on death of the Earl of Liverpool, and Chancellor of Exchequer in April, 1827. Exhibited Royal Academy, 1826. ) DUKE OF WELLINGTON (1769-1852), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR.A. Arthur Wellesley, First Duke. Celebrated General and Statesman. 10 BARON ERSKINE (1750-1823), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR.A, Thomas, First Baron, Lord Chancellor ; Intimate friend of Sheridan and Fox ; M.P. for Portsmouth ; Attorney-General to Prince of Wales, 1783 ; created Baron Erskine of Restormel, 1806 ; protested against the Corn Law Bill, 1822 ; worked for cause of Greek Independence, 1822-3. So y Exhibited Royal Academy^ 1802. 11 EARL GREY (1764-1845), By FREDERICK RICHARD SAY, Statesman; M.P. for Northumberland, 1786-1807; one of the managers of Warren Hasting's impeachment ; attacked Pitt's foreign policy and repressive legislation ; seceded from House of Commons with Whig party in 1797; returned to resist Irish Union, 1800; First Lord of the Admiralty, 1806 ; Foreign Secretary, 1806-7 ; Prime Minister, 1831. Exhibited Royal Academy^ ^833. 12 ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P,R.A. John Moore (i 730-1805), Archbishop of Canterbury ; M.A. Pembroke College, J751 ; Private Tutor to the sons of second Duke of Marlborough ; Prebendary of Durham, 1761 ; Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, 1763 ; Dean of Canterbury, 1771 ; Bishop of Bangor, 1775-83 ; Archbishop of y Canterbury, 1783-1805. Exhibited Royal Academy, 1794. —4— 13 LORD LYNDHURST (1772-1863), By H, PICKERSGILL, R.A. John Singleton Copley, the younger ; first Baron ; born in Boston, Mass ; brought to England, 1775 ; entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 1790 ; became Solicitor-General, 1819 ; Attorney-General, 1824-6 ; Master of the Rolls, 1826 ; Lord Chancellor, 1827-30 ; Created Baron Lyndhurst, 1827; again Lord Chancellor, 1834-5; third time Lord Chancellor, 1841-6; declined a fourth tenure of the Lord Chancellorship in 1851. / tA^M^ Exhibited Royal Academy, 183T. 14 LORD GRENVILLE (1759-1834), By JOHN HOPPNER. William Wyndham Grenville, 17 59- 1834. Statesman. Created a Peer, 1790 ; Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1782-3 ; Speaker, 1789 ; Home Secretary, 1789-90 ; Foreign Secretary, 1791-1801 ; Chancellor of Oxford, 1809 ; supported Continuation of War, 1815. 15 BARON STOWELL (1745-1836), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR.A, William Scott, Baron Stovvell. Maritime and International Lawyer. Knighted, 1788, George III. Advocate-General, 1788 ; Privy Councillor, 1798; M.P. for Oxford University, 1801-21. On many maritime points ^ his judgments are still the only law. Exhibited Royal Academy^ 1824. -5^ 16 EARL OF CHATHAM (1708-1788), By WM* HOARE. Wm, Pitt, First Earl, entered Parliament in 1735; had a most distinguished political career; was created Earl in 1766 ; noted for his famous attack on the American policy of the Government, and the harsh measures taken in regard to the American Colonies. He fell back in a fit whilst opposing the Duke of Richmond's motion for the withdrawal of the English forces from America, 7th April, 1778. As an orator he must be ranked with the greatest of ancient or modern times. He died at Hayes, on May iith, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on June 9th. Vu- ^ yi^ ^ <^ 17 DUKE OF BUCCLEUGH (1806-1884). By FREDERICK RICHARD SAY, Walter Francis Scott, Fifth Duke ; Grandson of Henry Scott ; Third Duke of Buccleugh ; succeeded to title, 1819 ; Lord Privy Seal, 1842-6; Lord President of the Council, 1846; Hon, D.C.L. Oxford, 1834; Hon. LL.D. Cambridge, 1842, and Edinburgh, 1874 ; Chancellor for Glasgow ^ / University, 1877. 18 SIR HENRY HARDINGE (1785-1856), By JOHN LUCAS, Field-Marshal ; was with Moore in last moments at Corunna, 1809 , Albuera, 181 1 ; wounded Vittoria, 181 3 ; commanded Portuguese Brigade at Storming of Palais, 18 14; K.C.B., 1815; watched Napoleon's movements for Wellington, on escape from Elba, 181 5 ; with Blucher at Ouatre Bras ; M.P. Durham, 1820-30 ; Secretary for War, 1828-30 and 1841-4 ; Governor-General of India, 1844-7. ^ ' ' Exhibited Royal Academy^ 1845. 19 LORD ABERDEEN, By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P,R,A, George Hamilton Gordon, Fourth Earl (1784-1860) ; Statesman ; Foreign Secretary, 1828-30 ; Secretary for War and Colonies under Peel, 1834-5 ; Foreign Secretary, 1841-6 ; Prime Minister, 1852. John Scott, First Earl of Eldon ; celebrated lawyer ; became M.P., 1783 ; Knighted and appointed Solicitor-General, 1788 ; Attorney-General, 1793 ; Lord Chief Justice, 1799 j created Baron Eldon, 1799 ; Lord Chancellor, 1801. Pursued vigorous policy for subjugation of Napoleon L Received title of Viscount Encombe and Earl of Eldon, 1821. His decrees were seldom appealed from and hardly ever reversed. He was F.R.S., F.S.A., Governor of Charterhouse, and a Trustee of the British Exhibited Royal Academy^ 1808. 20 LORD ELDON (1751-1838), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A. Museum. Exhibited Royal Academy^ 1828. 21 W. E. GLADSTONE (j8o9'i898), By JOHN LUCAS, (<^t4^t. Celebrated Stat csman and Author. 22 LORD ELLENBOROUGH (1790-1871), By FREDERICK RICHARD SAY. Edward Law, first Earl ; Governor-General of India, 1841 ; successfully contended with great difficulties in China and Afghanistan, 1842 ; responsible for the annexation of Scinde, 1842 ; unpopular with the civilians ; subjugated Gwalior, 1844 ; recalled and created Earl, 1844 ; First Lord of the Admiralty in Sir Robert Peel's re-constructed Ministry in 1846 ; President of the Board of Control under Lord Derby, 1858. 23 ROBERT SOUTHEY {i774-i843)t By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, RR.A. Poet and Man of Letters ; expelled from Westminster School for a precocious protest against flogging ; proceeded in 1792 to Balliol College, Oxford, where he began " Joan of Arc," an epic ; met Coleridge, converted him to unitarianism and frantisocracy ; married, and visited Spain, 1795 ; Portugal, 1800; there finished Thalaba," and planned History of Portugal ; Poet Laureate, 1813 : enjoyed a pension of £2)^o per annum . y granted by Peel. ExJiibited Royal Academy^ 1829. 24 SIR FRANCIS LEGATT CHANTREY (1781-1842), By SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A. Celebrated Sculptor ; son of a Carpenter ; was a Grocer's boy in Sheffield ; apprentice to a Sheffield Wood Carver, 1 797-1 802, and learned drawing and painting in oil ; commenced exhibiting in the Royal Academy, 1804, after which he worked chiefly in statuary. George IV. paid him 300 guineas for his bust in 1822. Knighted, 1835. He bequeathed his ^ property to the Royal Academy. I ART EXHIBITIONS. Sip WtS^ Peel has lent to the Graves Galleries, 6, Pall-mall, the splendid senes ai portraits, chiefly by Sir Thomas Lawrence, which happily still remain at Drayton Manor. Many of the heirlooms from that house were sold by auction a few years ago, with the permission of the Court ; but it appears that there is no question of selling those before us, and that the Coui't would not allow it. This is satisfactory, for it would be a great pity to break up a collection of such noble historical documents as these pictures are. The great Sir Kobert, as is well known, was one of the most skilful collectors of his time ; witness the " Peel pictures " — almost entirely Dutch and Flemish — in the National Gallery. He was also what is called a patron of the artists of his own day, and especially of Sir Thomas Lawrence, then unquestionably the first portrait painter in Europe, famous in every Coui't for his pictures of the allied Sovereigns and statesmen, painted for George . and now at Windsor. After these were done with, Sir Eobert claimed a good deal of his time, and made him produce a whole gallery of contemporary British statesmen, lawyers, &c., with a few other celebrities thrown in. They form a wonderful series, most of them so masterly in drawing and modelling that it can scarcely be believed that an Englishman can have risen to such a height in these particular ways. We have always been distinguished for other qualities — Eeynolds for variety and dignity, Gainsborough for grace and exquisite lightness of touch, Hoppner for colour ; but only Lawrence reaches that perfection of draughtsmanship to which the great Dutchmen Liad attained, and to which his contemporary Ingres was attaining. Among the Drayton pictures, the popular favourite will be the " Lady Peel in a Parli " — the second portrait he painted of this charming lady, the first being the well-kno^Ti Mrs. Peel in a large hat," which was sold out of the country some years ago, and which is now in the finest of the private collections in New York. The later example is remarkable in quality, and the landscape superb ; but it is to liis men that one must go if one wishes to see Lawrence at his best. Not to all, of <^iS£§e^: ^not tp^-Uiejwell-known full-length of the eq^ JO opis joq^ouTj osJb st ejoq'^' (^Bq7''«ioios -uoo c^ou G.vi OJOM *;uT3Soj.i^ !^^qAiomos jooj sn e^iTjm o^ poc^upioi^o si qoiq^ auo st suo^jTjgixqo jo (^sii siq ^lUT^dJoo -puutSua o^ soAiO c^-qSnoq^ qouaj J qonpw c^qop 9X|^ no ^lojKjno opud i^uoritju Jno oc^ oduqu:^ Suimjijqo pu^ il^^sspom oic^i'uoa -o^Bqo q^i^vv ,pMp oq 'oon«.rj pa.; pu^rSu'Fr nooM^^oq suoOTaa T^n^oonQ^ni oq^ uo Qnbm -s^JV %^ enbgic^uaps 'a^I^e^^iT 'enbmn^u^ " -oouui,^ oou^xTTV,. eua €a ' o^moaT sm ut LAWRENCE'S PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. r. ft / A further portion of the splendid collection of pictures formed by Sir Robert Peel,, the Prime Minister, will come under the hammer on November 24 at Messrs. Robinson, Fisher, and Co.'s, Willis's Rooms, King-street, St. James's-square. This portion will consist of one picture only — namely, the whole-length portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence of Arthur Duke of Wellington, one of a dozen recorded in Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower's monograph of that artist. It is the whole-length exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1826, and again at the British Institution in the special exhibition of La^v^ence's works in 1830. It was not again seen in pubhc until 1891, when it was lent by Sir Robert Peel to the Victorian Exhibition at the New Gallery. In the meantime, however, it had been — in 1 8 17— -engraved by Samuel Cousins. The portrait represents the Duke in dark dress with white-lined cloak throwTi loosely over hie shoulders, standing bareheaded in a landscape and holding a telescope ; a building is seen to the left. The canvas is 96in. by 60in. The pictinre will be on view at Messrs. Robinson, Fisher, and Co.'s, its pubhc sale by auction having been sanctioned by the Court, Lawrence's Portrait of Southey. — In addition to the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence of the Duke of Wellington, Messrs. Robinson, Fisher, and Co.'s sale on November 25 will include a second picture from the Peel collection, the three-quarter length portrait of Robert Southey, the poet, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1829. This is the portrait to which Peel referred in a letter to Sir Walter Scott as " scowling vengence at me for my apostacy " (on Catholic emancipation). This portrait of Southey has never been engraved, and is the only one by I^awrence recorded in the mono- graph on that artist by Lord Ronald Suthn^and Gower, who apparently did not know where it was when he wrote. The two Lawrence portraits of Wellington and Southey were exhibited with other Peel heklooms at Graves'^s Galleries in May-Ju ly, 1908. MESSRS. ROBINSON, FISHER, and Co. b^g to announce that the PORTRAIT of the POET SOUTHEY by iair Thom;(s Lavvieuce, advertibed to be told at tlie aaiue time, has beeu WiTHDEAWM. FRANCO-BRITISH EXHIBITION The Stand of the Graves' Exhibit. 75' x 28', Building No. 2, close to main entrance. The largest and most representative of all the British Fine Art Publishers. HENRY GRAVES & Co., Ltd., 'Publishers to His t^ajesty the King. KsiaUishrd 1752 6. PALL MALL, S.W.