Sir Godfrey Kneller Bt.

(1646-1723) Portrait of a Gentleman

1687

Oil on canvas

49 x 40 in. (124.4 x 101.6 cm)

Provenance

By descent to the Rev. E. H. Dawkins, Morhanger House, Bedfordshire;
His sale Christie’s London, February 28th 1913, Lot 30, as Sir Charles Sedley, bought by Agnew’s for 360gn;
Scott and Fowles, New York, by 1915, by whom sold to;
R.C. and N.M. Vose, November 4th 1915;
Bought by Matthew Andrews, May 18th 1917;
Possibly Mrs Hanna (mother of Leonard C. Hanna Jr), who is said to have donated it to the Cleveland Playhouse, Cleveland Ohio, circa 1976;
Cleveland Playhouse, Treasure Sale, after 1978, where acquired by a private collector, Cleveland Ohio;
Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York, to 2005

Literature

V. de Sola Pinto ed., The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir Charles Sedley Constable, London, 1928, Vol I., frontispiece, (‘Portrait of a Gentleman said to be Sir Charles Sedley) p. xxxix (‘reproduced by courtesy of Messrs Scott and Fowles New York) and ‘A note on the illustrations’ following p.xxxix;
J. Douglas Stewart, Sir Godfrey Kneller and the English Baroque Portrait, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983;
J. Douglas Stewart, in Portraits and other recent acquisitions, Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, catalogue, 2004, cat. 14

Exhibitions

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Ohio, February 14th-December 1916

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The years from 1675 to the early 1690s represent perhaps the only period in Kneller’s career when he may have felt threatened by rivals. Even after the death of Sir Peter Lely in 1680 he was in competition with John Michael Wright, John Riley, John Closterman and Willem Wissing, all of them accomplished and versatile painters.

Kneller’s portraits of this date are shining demonstrations of his talent, and none is a more virtuoso demonstration of his talent than the present example. It employs a pose based on Lely’s Portrait of the 2nd Earl of Carnarvon, but the intensity of characterisation is entirely Kneller’s own - the sitter’s torso is brought forward from the vertical, leaning to engage the spectator more intently, the right hand is dropped further to clutch the draperies tighter and the open background is reduced to a narrow glimpse of landscape shut in by foliage....

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