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PORTRAIT OF RICHARD BARWELL AND HIS SON

PORTRAIT OF RICHARD BARWELL AND HIS SON

measurements note
87 1/4 by 61 7/8 in.; 221.5 by 157 cm.

full length, seated wearing a red coat and green waistcoat, his son wearing a pink jacket and trousers, in a library

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Sir Horatio Davies, 1899;
Probably Sir George Donaldson, 1907;
With Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1913;
With Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York and Paris, 1928;
William Goadby Loew, New York;
His deceased sale (sold anonymously), New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., April 26-28, 1956, lot 484, there purchased for $12,000 by
Billy Rose, New York;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Christie's, April 17, 1964, lot 48, for 1700 Gns. to Dykes.

EXHIBITED

Probably London, Royal Academy, 1907, no. 110;
Paris, Galerie Sedelmeyer, Twelfth Series of One Hundred Paintings by Old Masters, 1913, no. 94.

LITERATURE

A. Graves and W. V. Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Vol. I, London 1899, pp. 59-60 (with provenance from two versions of this portrait conflated as one);
W. Armstrong, Sir Joshua Reynolds, New York 1900, p. 192;
E. K. Waterhouse, Reynolds, London 1941, p, 72;
D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven 2000, Text Vol. p. 77, cat. no. 128, Plates Vol., reproduced fig. 1335.

NOTE

Painted circa 1780-81.

Richard Barwell (1741-1804) was born in Calcutta on October 8, 1741, the second of four sons of William Barwell (1705-1769), governor of Fort William, Bengal and afterwards a director of the East India Company, and his third wife, Elizabeth Peirce (1722-1771). Richard was educated in England at Westminster School, but returned to Calcutta and held appointments with the East India Company from 1756. He became a member of the Council in Bengal under Warren Hastings, the governor-general, of whom he was a constant supporter. Having amassed a fortune in India, he retired to England in 1780 and purchased Stanstead Park, Sussex from the trustees of the Earl of Halifax and he commissioned this portrait at that time. He also purchased land and other property in the surrounding area and a house in St. James's Square, London. Barwell was MP for Helston 1781-84, for St. Ives 1784-90, and for Winchelsea 1790-96. His first marriage, on September 13, 1776, was to Eliza Jane Sanderson, by whom he had two sons. One of their sons, Richard, is portrayed in the present portrait. His second marriage, in 1785, was to Catherine Coffin, daughter of Nathaniel Coffin, a customs official from Boston, Massachusetts. There were at least ten children from his second marriage, and he had several other children by his mistress, Mrs. Seaforth, whom Reynolds also painted in circa 1786-87 (now in the collection of Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Liverpool). Richard Barwell died in Stanstead House in 1804 and was buried in the church of St. John the Baptist at Westbourne, Sussex. Shortly after his death, Stanstead House and his other Sussex properties were sold by his trustees.

Another version of this portrait by Reynolds, including a small portrait of Warren Hastings propped againt the bookcase, is in a private collection (see Mannings, Literature below, p. 77, cat. no. 129, reproduced fig. 1334). The present portrait was engraved by William Dickinson; the other version was engraved by R. B. Parkes.

This portrait was owned for many years by William Goadby Loew of New York and purchased to decorate the lavish home he built on East 93rd Street, one of the last mansions to be built in New York City (designed by A. Stewart Walker of Walker and Gillette in 1931, and now part of the Spence School). After Loew's death, the house was purchased by Billy Rose, the famous Broadway producer. Rose bought a number of the paintings that belonged to Loew, including the Portrait of Richard Barwell and His Son, from the auction of the contents of the house in 1956 (see Provenance below).