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Artist or Maker: SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS P.R.A. Plympton, Devon 1723-1792 London
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Dimensions: 76.5 by 63.5 cm., 30 by 25 in.
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Provenance: Commissioned by Henry Thrale (1728-1781) for his library at Streatham Park, Surrey;
Sale on the premises of the contents of Streatham Park, George Squibb, 10th May 1816, lot 59, (bt. in for £102.18);
Sold by Mrs Piozzi (formerly Mrs Thrale) in April 1819 to George Watson Taylor (1771-1841), 1 Harley Street, London and Erlestoke Park, Wiltshire;
His sale, Robins, 25th July 1832, lot 142 (bt. by Graves for £23.2.0);
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt. (1788-1850);
By descent in the Peel family until sold Robinson & Fisher, 11th May 1900, lot 256 (bt. by Agnew's for £336);
Sold by Agnew's on 14th July 1900 to Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919);
His sale, Christie's London, 14th December 1917, lot 72 (bt. by Arthur Sulley for £399);
sold by Sulley to Mr Ralston-Mitchell;
By descent to a private collection, Yorkshire, until sold Dee Atkinson and Harrison, 16th September 2005, lot 702, (bt. for £340,000)
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Literature: Joshua Reynolds, MS pocket books (Royal Academy of Arts, London): sittings for 8th September, 8th, 11th and 15th November 1773; 8th September 1777; 12th and 18th February 1779;
CR Leslie and T Taylor, Life & Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, London 1865, vol. II, pp. 48, 55;
A Graves and WV Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, London 1899-1901, vol. II, p. 679;
J L Clifford, Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale), 2nd edn, Oxford 1952, p. 442, note 1;
M Hyde, The Thrales of Streatham Park, Cambridge, MA and London 1977, pp. 180, 300;
M Hyde, 'The Library Portraits at Streatham Park', The New Rambler (Journal of the Johnson Society of London), Serial C, no. XX, 1979, pp. 14, 16, 22-24;
Agnew's Picture Stockbook, no. 4;
P H Highfill et al., A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel, Carbondale 1984, vol. 10, p. 399;
The Piozzi Letters: Correspondence of Hester Lynch Piozzi, 1784-1821 (formerly Mrs Thrale), vol. 5, 1811-1816, Cranbury, NJ and London 1999, pp. 477-8, 482, 484, 490-1, 493, 539; vol. 6, 1817-1821, 2002, pp. 84, 250-1, 253, 255-7;
D Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London 2000, text vol. p. 347, no. 1312; plates vol., p. 440, fig. 1098
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamenti and London, Tate Britain, Joshua Reynolds: the Creation of Celebrity, 2005, exh. cat. ed. by Martin Postle, p. 165
Engraved:
by F. Bromley, 1862
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Notes:
A mind in which Mirth can with Merit reside
And Learning turns Frolic with Humour his Guide
Hester Thrale wrote these verses about the Irish-born playwright, actor and lawyer Arthur Murphy in 1781, inspired by Reynolds's sensitive portrait of him. The picture formed part of the celebrated group of portraits of notable sitters painted by Reynolds to adorn the library at Streatham Park owned by his friend Henry Thrale, Hester Thrale's husband. Until 2005 all the portraits in this group had been traced with the exception of that of Murphy, and it is exciting that the whole of this significant group has now been traced. Reynolds enjoyed the company of intelligent and witty men, and his powers as a portrait painter were at their height when painting such sitters.
The talented Arthur Murphy was one of three Irishmen to be included amongst the 'Streatham Worthies' (the others were Burke and Goldsmith). The youngest son of Richard Murphy and his wife Jane French, he was born at Clooniquin in County Roscommon, in Ireland, and was educated in France. He came over to London, working at Ironside and Belchier, the bankers, until 1751 and then from 1752-4 serving on the staff of the Covent Garden Journal where he published the Gray's Inn Journal. In 1754 he abandoned the world of banking and publishing, and took to the stage. His Covent Garden début was as Othello, but he also contributed as theatre critic to The Literary Magazine. In 1757 he began to publish The Test, an anonymous political weekly journal which supported Henry Fox and attacked Pitt the Elder. Murphy's first play, The Apprentice, was performed at Drury Lane in 1756 and he continued to write successfully for the theatre in the 1760s and 1770s. His best known comedy was The Way to Keep Him (1766) which continued to be performed until the last century. He rented DruryLane in 1761 with his friend the comic actor Samuel Foote (whom Reynolds painted in 1767 ? the portrait is untraced since being sold in the Earl of Lincoln's sale in 1939). In the same year he wrote The Citizen in which the part of Maria was written for the actress Ann Elliott with whom he was greatly enamoured. She left him for the Duke of Cumberland and he never married. In 1762 Murphy was responsible for the first biography of Henry Fielding and also published his works. Later literary endeavours included an Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson (1792) and Life of David Garrick (1801) ? both Johnson and Garrick were close friends of Murphy's and their portraits formed part of the 'Streatham Worthies'.
Murphy had a parallel career as a lawyer, being admitted to Lincoln's Inn and called to the Bar in 1762. He subsequently acted as lawyer for both Edmund Burke and for Henry Thrale. In the years 1765-78 and 1796-1805 he served as a Commissioner of Bankruptcy, a somewhat unusual post for someone who was often himself in debt. In 1802 he became a Bencher of Lincolns Inn with a royal pension of £200 a year. Despite his successes as both actor and lawyer Murphy never amassed a great fortune and was forced to sell both his house in Hammersmith Terrace and part of his library towards the end of his life.
The origins of the great gallery of portraits at Streatham goes back to the formation of the 'Club' in 1764. Reynolds enjoyed the conversation of witty and intelligent men, and was thus particularly delighted to become a friend of Dr. Johnson. They met in 1756, when Reynolds was only thirty-three years old, almost fifteen years younger than Johnson, but despite the difference in age they became firm friends. Johnson encouraged Reynolds's literary ambitions, and enjoyed the hospitality of the artist's sister. The Club was formed in 1764, ostensibly to giveJohnson a platform for his conversation, and at first a small and select group met every week at the Turk's Head. The nine original members included Burke and Goldsmith, but the numbers soon increased. In 1766 Reynolds first met Henry Thrale, a prosperous brewer, and became a frequent guest of him and his wife at Streatham Place, his house in Surrey. Thrale became acquainted with many of the members of Reynolds's club, particularly Johnson, who helped choose books for Thrale's library. Thrale decided to commission from Reynolds portraits of these friends to hang in his library. They were painted between 1772 and 1781, and totalled twelve in all (see figs. 1 to 6), together with a portrait of Thrale's wife Hester and their daughter. The latter was different from the others in the group as it showed the sitters full length and in a landscape, whilst the remaining twelve were half length portraits.
In her diary entry for 10th January 1781 Mrs Thrale set out in verse the characters of all the sitters, and added that "I write them in the order they are to hang". This order was Lord Sandys (Private Collection), William Lyttelton, Lord Wescote (Viscount Cobham), Mrs Thrale and her daughter (Beaverbrook Art Gallery), Mr Murphy (the present lot), Oliver Goldsmith (National Gallery of Ireland), Sir Joshua Reynolds (Tate Gallery), Sir Robert Chambers (Private Collection), David Garrick (The Houghton Library, Harvard), Giuseppe Baretti (Private Collection), Dr Burney (National Portrait Gallery) and Dr. Johnson (Tate Gallery). It seems that the Thrale commissions grew as the circle itself grew and ended when there was no more space in the library. The last to be added was the fine portrait of Dr. Burney in academic dress, painted in 1781. Letters between Hester Thrale and Fanny Burney indicate that the gallerywas virtually complete by January 1781, though the pictures were not hung for several months. Thrale himself died on 4th April that year and probably never saw them all in place. In 1784 Mrs Thrale married Gabriel Piozzi who died in 1821. Financial difficulties forced the sale of all the portraits in 1816, though Hester Thrale reserved for herself the portrait of her late husband and this portrait of her close friend Arthur Murphy.
There were precedents for Clubs commissioning series of portraits. The most famous example was the series of portraits of members of the Kit Kat Club, painted by Kneller, though these certainly lack the variety and individuality of the portraits by Reynolds. Knapton painted the early members of the Dilettanti Society each in fancy dress, and in 1779 Reynolds himself painted two group portraits of the members of that society. The Streatham portraits are notable for their individuality and their truthful depiction of the very different characters of each of the sitters. Reynolds disregarded convention in his refusal to hide any physical deficiencies in his friends ? Baretti is shown as very short sighted, Johnson as ungainly and Reynolds painted himself as a deaf man cupping his ear. Many of the portraits show his friends in informal dress and often seem to have been painted at Streatham, a rare example of Reynolds working outside his studio.
Hester Thrale particularly prized this portrait of Murphy. She instructed her steward: 'Murphy's Portrait must not be sold under £100' and it was bought in for her for £102.18. She wrote to the Rev. Thomas Whalley on 13th May 1816: "I kept dear Murphy for myself ? He was the Playfellow of my first Husband, The true and partial Friend of my second". George Watson Taylor, who had bought Johnson's portrait at the sale for £378 and Baretti's for £31.10, offered her 150 guineas for it but was turned down. Finally in 1819 she gave way and sold the portrait and a Magdalen by Cipriani to him for £200.
The portrait had a distinguished subsequent history. George Watson Taylor had bought Erlestoke Park in Wiltshire in 1819 and furnished it with fine furniture and some distinguished Old Masters. Murphy's portrait was destined for the Reynolds Room at Erlestoke. When Taylor was forced to sell up, an enormous sale was held in 1832 running over twenty-one days. Murphy's portrait then entered the collection of Sir Robert Peel, later Prime Minister and remained with the Peel family until 1900. It was subsequently acquired from Agnew's by the artist and connoisseur Charles Fairfax Murray who sold it in 1917.
In her diary Hester Thrale wrote with pride and with much justification: "let any other Set be produced & the mighty Superiority of Ours will speedily be acknowledged". Murphy was a popular figure, well liked for his intelligence, good humour and "well-bred demeanour". He was exactly the kind of sitter with whom Reynolds had particular empathy and the artist has produced one of his most sympathetic male portraits. Unusually it is also in superb condition, still on its original unlined canvas and with its impasto still intact.
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