New Collectors | January Update

New Collectors was launched as a platform to offer assistance in the buying and collection of works of art. Philip Mould & Company are committed to helping perceptive new collectors who may be looking to start a collection, or expand an existing collection into new realms and genres. This considered collection combines a curated selection of Portrait Miniatures by top tier miniaturists with Modern British works on paper by innovative Modern Masters

'Art is a never ending source of sustenance and pleasure. In the domestic spaces I occupy it forever uplifts, delights, provokes and accompanies me. Life now without it would be unthinkable, and I want other people to share in the richness that it can offer. New Collectors is a way of crossing the threshold with our support.' - Philip Mould

This month Head of Research, Lawrence Hendra, and Portrait Miniatures Consultant, Emma Rutherford, share their new additions to the New Collectors collection. Scroll down to view.

Christian Friedrich Zincke (1683-1767) A young woman, wearing white dress with lilac sash, her blonde hair worn loose with a strand of pearls, c. 1715 

The artist who painted this portrait, Christian Friedrich Zincke, was the most sought after enameller in England in the early to mid 18^th century. His fame reflected not only his skill in capturing the refined contours of his sitter's faces in the complex process of enamelling, but also lay in the sitters who came to his studio.

One of the most notorious of these was Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), who sat for Zincke in 1711 (his earliest, dated portrait commission in England, now in the Royal Collection). Sarah was a political and social climber who befriended Queen Anne to the point that the Queen fell in love with her. Proving that it is certainly not a modern concept that fashion is shaped by celebrities, it is clear that there are similarities between the composition of this portrait and images of Sarah Churchill. It is possible that the (sadly, unknown) sitter in this portrait felt an affinity and admiration for Sarah. This may have stemmed from the physical similarities between them; both had striking pale-blonde hair. Certainly, she has chosen to copy a well-known pose first used by Sir Godfrey Kneller in painting Sarah, where she is shown with her head tilted away in a stance which is part-sensuous/part-coy.

John Smart (1742-1811) Portrait of Sir John William Floyd (1748-1818), wearing cavalry uniform, 1791

This is one of the finest works on paper by John Smart our gallery has handled in recent years and shows him at the height of his artistic powers.

John Smart was born in 1741 and by the mid-1760s he had established a reputation as a competent painter of portrait miniatures. By 1770 Smart had 'found' his style and the works he produced thereafter were characterised by their exceptional attention to detail.

In 1785, after two decades of success in London, Smart travelled to India where he spent almost ten years working in Madras painting East India Company officials and their families as well as local dignitaries.

The present work was drawn in 1791 and depicts an army officer named Sir John Floyd, who had gained great distinction around this date as a cavalry commander in Lord Cornwallis's campaigns against Tipu Sultan of Mysore and had recently been promoted to Colonel. Although impossible to know for certain, this work was probably commissioned by Floyd as a gift for his wife Rebecca, whom he married on 29 January 1791. The risk of serious injury, illness or death was ever present for those living and working in India at this date, and as a result there was great demand for accurate likenesses of loved ones. Floyd was one of the lucky ones who survived and over the years that followed he built a considerable wealth before returning to England in 1800.

The majority of recorded works on paper by John Smart are small in scale and were painted by the artist for his personal records. They were originally pasted into albums which were then divided up, framed and sold by the artist’s descendants in the mid-twentieth century. The present work, however, falls into a different category and its exceptionally high level of finish and scale indicates it was always intended to be proudly displayed. This would have been considered an important commission by both artist and subject, each eager to record a moment in time and to celebrate their success in a faraway land.

Charles Shirreff (c.1750-c.1831) An Officer, wearing the uniform of the 34^th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot, 1803

This characterful portrait of an officer is part of the rather remarkable story of the artist, Charles Shirreff. Shirreff was deaf from the age of three, but thanks to his parent's determination that their son should lead as full a life as possible, they found him a very special teacher. In the mid-eighteenth century, although education existed in some form for deaf children it was focussed on teaching how to speak clearly enough to be understood. The teacher found by Shirreff's parents, Thomas Braidwood (1715-1806), was more ambitious. Braidwood took on the challenge of teaching the ten year old Charles with gusto and he combined the vocal exercises of articulation with lip-reading and, for the first time, hand gestures that we recognise today as sign language. Shirreff therefore became one of the first children to learn what today we know as British Sign Language (BSL https://www.british-sign.co.uk). Dr. Johnson noted that Braidwood's pupils 'hear with the eye.' For the young Charles, this new form of communication began to break down the barriers that his deafness had put between him and society.

Not only did the teenage Charles go on to travel to London from his native Edinburgh, but he left the Royal Academy Schools with a silver medal. His flourishing career then took him to India, where he spent twelve years painting the ex-pat community, largely made up of employees of the East India Company, including soldiers, as in the case with this portrait of an officer stationed in Madras.

Considering that portrait painters were, by the nature of their profession, good communicators and conversationalists (having a bored subject rarely made for a successful portrait), Charles carved out a career which more than matched his contemporaries. In doing this he also disproved the widely held belief at the time that intellect was affected by disability. His independent career and his daring in undertaking the long and hazardous journey to India indicate a man who refused to let what Johnson described as a 'human calamity' define his life.