Enfilade

From the press release (29 June 2023) from the Mellon Centre:

Dr Sarah Victoria Turner has been appointed Director of the Paul Mellon Centre. Sarah Turner has been Acting Director of the Centre since March 2023 and will take up the post from July 2023. She follows Mark Hallett as the sixth Director of the Paul Mellon Centre and will be its first female Director since its founding in 1970.

Sarah Turner’s directorship will build on her eight years at the Centre, first as Assistant Director for Research and lately as Deputy Director, during which time she has overseen many innovative programmes and collaborative projects with partners in the UK and internationally, including establishing the national art writing competition, Write on Art, with Art UK, co-leading the London-Asia research project, and co-writing and co-hosting the Sculpting Lives podcast. She is editor-in-chief of the award-winning, open-access journal British Art Studies (since its founding in 2015). During her time at the Paul Mellon Centre, Dr Turner has had oversight of the archive & library, digital activities, book and online publications, and the research programme.

Sarah Turner read History of Art at Pembroke College, Cambridge. At the University of Leeds, she studied for an MA in Sculpture Studies, run in partnership with the Henry Moore Institute, and then completed her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She began her academic career at the University of York where she was first a Teaching Fellow and then a Lecturer in the Department of History of Art. As an art historian, she has published widely and has co-curated several major exhibitions, and much of her writing has focused on the entangled relationships between Britain, the British Empire, and South Asia.

Susan Gibbons, Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communication, Yale University, and ex-officio Chief Executive of the Paul Mellon Centre commented: “I am delighted to announce the appointment of Sarah Victoria Turner. Her energy and passion for collaboration as a scholar and curator, and her strong leadership skills, make her an exceptional appointee.”

Sarah Turner said: “I am thrilled to be leading an outstanding team of people at the Paul Mellon Centre. I look forward to working closely with the Yale community, particularly our partner institution, the Yale Center for British Art, to take the Centre forward in its mission to promote activities that expand and enhance understandings of British art. The Paul Mellon Centre offers incredible resources that support research, curating and education activities. One of my aims as Director is to share these as widely as possible and to open up new conversations, ideas and narratives about the histories of British art. I am excited about the future direction of work that the Centre will shape and support. As Director, I will be a vocal champion for the value of art and architectural history and research on visual culture more broadly in helping us navigate some of the most complex questions of our time.”

From the press release, via Art Daily:

Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of Captain Frederick Cornewall, ca. 1762 (Greenwich: National Maritime Museum).

Royal Museums Greenwich has announced the discovery of a portrait by famed eighteenth-century artist Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). Recent research into the Portrait of Captain Frederick Cornewall (ca. 1762) by Hugh Belsey and RMG curators has led to the exciting reattribution to Gainsborough.

Gainsborough was a leading artist in the second half of the eighteenth century. He is celebrated for his intimate and characterful portraits produced with lively brushwork. He was a founding member of the Royal Academy and has had a lasting influence in British art. The three-quarter-length portrait of Captain Frederick Cornewall (1706–1788) entered the RMG collection in 1960. It was recorded as a Gainsborough, but the curator at the time did not deem it of a high enough quality. It was attributed to an unknown artist and has been in storage for at least three decades.

Hugh Belsey had discovered a photograph of Cornewall’s portrait from the early twentieth century when the painting was owned by the London dealers, Agnew’s. He then traced the painting through several sales to the collector, Edward Peter Jones, but here the trail went cold. Unbeknownst to Belsey, Jones had bequeathed the painting to RMG in 1960. It was not until 2022, when Belsey’s friend was looking through the illustrated catalogue of the National Maritime Museum’s collection, that Belsey became aware that the painting may be in the RMG collection. Belsey requested to see the portrait in the museum stores in February 2022 and, on inspection of the painting, it became clear from the warm palette and unrivalled draughtsmanship that it was a Gainsborough.

Belsey has dated the painting to about 1762 when Gainsborough was working in Bath and sees it as an impressive example of the painter’s work from this period. Cornewall stands against a plain brown background in undress uniform and a bag wig. Gainsborough’s delicate brushwork is especially obvious in the most detailed areas of the picture, such as the lace cuff around Cornewall’s left wrist. Society columns from newspapers of the time show that Cornewall visited Bath in March 1762. The painting was presumably commissioned during this visit. It was perhaps intended to commemorate Cornewall’s retirement from active naval service the previous year. Cornewall had lost his arm during the Battle of Toulon (1744) and Gainsborough highlights the injury, styling Cornewall as a courageous fighter. The sleeve of his coat attached by a small loop to a button on his waistcoat in imitation of the traditional eighteenth-century pose where men were often painted tucking one hand into their waistcoat.

Fundraising has now started to conserve the painting and frame for display. Urgent treatment is needed as the paint layer is loose and there is flaking in some areas. As the painting has not been displayed for some time, there is a layer of dust over the surface of the front and back of the painting, which creates a dull appearance. A layer of conservation grade varnish, which is resistant to yellowing with age, will be applied to re-saturate the pigments. RMG’s crowdfunding campaign will aim to raise £60,000 towards the conservation, which will return the portrait to something closer to Gainsborough’s original intentions in preparation for display at the Queen’s House. The fundraising page went live on Monday, 10 July.

Katherine Gazzard, curator, said: “It is thrilling to be able to rescue this lost masterpiece from obscurity. Those of us lucky enough to see the portrait in the museum stores knew it was something special, but it was only with Hugh’s help that we were able to piece together the full story. We are excited about sharing the painting with the public, but it is currently too fragile for display. The fundraising campaign will enable us to perform the remedial work that the portrait desperately needs. Once the conservation is complete, the painting will hang in the Queen’s House, where our visitors will be able to enjoy this rediscovered masterpiece for themselves.”

Hugh Belsey said: “I have been studying Gainsborough’s works for over forty years, and during that time I have taken every opportunity to look at as many paintings and drawings as possible. I am delighted that this splendid portrait is now identified as a fine early work by Gainsborough. Gainsborough’s work was developing at a very fast pace in the early 1760s, and during the decade and as he attracted more commissions, his style became more assured and his brushwork freer.”

Captain Frederick Cornewall was born in 1706 in Shropshire. He had an active naval career, serving in two high profile battles, the Battle of Toulon (1744) and Battle of Minorca (1756). Both received public scrutiny and criticism with some officers being accused of inaction and cowardice.

At the Battle of Toulon, Cornewall was wounded which resulted in the amputation of his right arm. He served on the Marlborough one of the few British ships that engaged with the Franco-Spanish fleet. In the portrait, Cornewall is positioned with his right arm towards the viewer, emphasising his war wound. The composition could be interpreted as Cornewall distinguishing himself as a participant in the main action thereby portraying himself as a dutiful and willing officer, unlike his colleagues who had failed to engage the enemy at Toulon.

At the Battle of Minorca, fought against the French, the British Navy came under scrutiny once more. The battle ended in failure and ultimately led to Minorca being captured by the French. The British public reacted with outrage. Vice-Admiral John Byng, who commanded the fleet, was court-martialled and sentenced to death. Although the court recommended clemency, the public’s appetite for punishment, political divisions, and George II’s personal reluctance to grant a royal pardon led to Byng’s execution. Cornewall’s testimony played a key role in his sentencing.

From the press release (10 July 2023). . .

Rosalba Carriera, Portrait of a Gentleman, ca. 1730, pastel on paper, laid down on canvas, 24 × 18 inches (Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Charles H. Schwartz Endowment Fund).

The Wadsworth Atheneum has acquired an outstanding work by Rosalba Carriera (widely known as ‘Rosalba’), the most famous woman artist working in the eighteenth century and admired as a pioneering and brilliant pastellist. Portrait of a Gentleman (ca. 1730), was created when she reached the height of her career, portraying the upper echelons of society with a deft hand and observational sensitivity. It is the first example of the artist’s work in the Wadsworth Atheneum’s collection.

Rosalba (1675–1757) started her career as a miniaturist, but she became best known for her skill with pastels—her technical and artistic innovations elevating the uniquely powdery medium to great popularity among artists and collectors. Royalty, cardinals, and cognoscenti across Europe commissioned portraits and allegories from her. It quickly attracted admirers and younger followers such as Jean-Étienne Liotard and Maurice Quentin de la Tour.

“Portrait of a Gentleman is a work of rare elegance and grace—it is also an exemplary work by Rosalba. The freshness and radiance of the colors as well as the vaporous quality of the surface truly distinguish this work and lend to its liveliness. That we are as yet unable to definitively identify the sitter is secondary to the captivating beauty of this portrait,” said Oliver Tostmann, Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art at the Wadsworth.

The figure depicted was first identified as the legendary art collector Pierre Crozat, and later as Louis Armand II de Bourbon, Prince de Conti; neither suggestion, however, has been verified. The sitter poses with torso in profile and his head positioned toward the viewer, nearly achieving contact while maintaining a slight aloofness. With his magnificent shoulder length wig, damask justaucorps coat, and splendid red vest embellished with gold embroidery and buttons, this handsome sitter was clearly someone of status and rank.

“This breathtaking portrait will greatly enrich our growing collection of works on paper. Not only is it a work of the highest quality, but it is also from the hand of the most celebrated pastellist of the eighteenth century. We are proud to welcome Portrait of a Gentleman into the Wadsworth’s collection and look forward to sharing Rosalba Carriera’s brilliance with our visitors very soon,” said Matthew Hargraves, Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum.