Portrait of John Jones of Pentre Mawr, Abergele

Portrait of John Jones of Pentre Mawr, Abergele
Portrait of John Jones of Pentre Mawr, Abergele
Portrait of John Jones of Pentre Mawr, Abergele
Private Collection, Wales / Photograph by Christopher Chard
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
Portrait of John Jones of Pentre Mawr, Abergele
Date
1738
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Metric: 76.3 x 63.6 cm
Imperial: 30 x 25 in.
Collection
Private Collection, Wales
Wilson Online Reference
P4
Description
The sitter is shown head and shoulders against a dark background in an oval fictive frame, wearing a brown coat, white cravat and narrow black tie, with a short powdered wig.
Exhibited
Tercentenary 2014 (ex-cat exhibited at National Museum of Wales, Cardiff)
Provenance
By descent in the Jones family at Abergele until c.1920; by descent to Reginald Jones-Bateman (d. 1965), Ting Tong, Budleigh Salterton, Devon; private collection Devon; bt by Miles Wynn Cato, Ludlow; sold February 2014 to a private collector in Wales
Signature/inscription
Indistinctly signed in small cursive letters and dated lower right corner: [...]lson 173 [8?]
Techniques and materials
The face is thinly painted with a liquid quality
Verso inscriptions
[1] The lining canvas boldly inscribed in black paint: Painted by Rd. Wilson R.A. | Cleaned, Lined & Repaired by A.R. Burt, Chester 1827
[2] Upper horizontal member of stretcher in black ink in a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century hand: John Jones's Portrait. See monument in Abergele church
Labels
[1] Label attached to lower horizontal member of stretcher, inscribed in black ink in a later nineteenth-century hand: John Jones | (brother of Revd. Hugh Jones) | rector of Llanferres / born 1703 ... died 1778
Subject
The sitter lived from 1703-1778. The Jones family of Pentre Mawr, Abergele, Denbighshire, were significant early patrons of Wilson. Both the father and older brother of the sitter were Vicars of Llanferres near Mold, where the artist's cousins lived and where he was buried in 1782.
Related Paintings
P2 Ascribed to Wilson, Portrait of the Revd Hugh Jones, location unknown
Critical commentary
This is one of Wilson's earliest surviving portraits, pre-dated only perhaps by P0 Portrait of the Revd John Wilson, P2 Ascribed to Wilson, Portrait of the Revd Hugh Jones, P216 Portrait of Miss Catherine Jones of Colomendy and P226 Portrait of Anne Owen.
More Information
Although it was recorded in 1872, the portrait's whereabouts were unknown until its rediscovery in the west of England in 2013.
Condition/Conservation
In a contemporary frame, though not the original. The frame and tablet are identical with those of P2 Ascribed to Wilson, Portrait of the Revd Hugh Jones. Kate Lowry has noted: Original support simple weave, medium weight, linen canvas. Paste lined onto similar weight linen canvas by A.R. Burt who inscribed the lining reverse: 'Cleaned, lined and repaired by AR Burt Chester 1837'. Original turnovers removed at the time of relining. Four-member stretcher without keys probably dates from relining. The vection cracks run along the inside edges of the present stretcher bars except at the top edge where the distance between the top of the stretcher bar and the crack is 25 mm narrower. This suggests that the size of the original canvas has been reduced slightly along the top when relined. Dark grey ground, probably commercially prepared. The half tones of the flesh are the exposed grey of the ground. The painting has recently been cleaned and under UV light residues of old varnish are visible around margins. There are minor retouches around the left side of the face and in the tie and stock of the sitter. The retouching medium fluoresces a bluish colour so the sitter's black tie looks blue under UV light. There is a large retouch at lower left in the fictive oval. Otherwise the painting is in good condition.
Updated by Compiler
2020-07-28 00:00:00