About this Item
The exterior dimensions are 760 x 620 mm, while the oval portrait itself is 560 x 460 mm. The original painting by Robert Edge Pine (1730-1788) was auctioned at Christie's South Kensington on December 2, 2008, as lot 59. It sold for £103,250, which was, quite literally, more than twenty times the auctioneer's estimate. One point of interest is that Christie's described their painting as showing Thrale as having grey eyes; and they are definitely grey in the Christie's portrait. In the present painting -- copy or otherwise -- Thrale's eyes are hazel. The Pine painting was engraved for the European Magazine in 1786 The online catalogue of the National Portrait Gallery, London, has no reproduction of the original Pine painting, and no reproduction of the present portrait. The NPG does, however, have a reproduction of the engraved portrait that appeared in the European Magazine in 1786, but they do not give Pine as the original artist; instead they attribute the original to Sir Joshua Reynolds (quite mistakenly, I believe). The extended lot description still available via the Christie's website has much to recommend it, and notably includes only one instance of the Pine painting being exhibited: it was portrait no. 29 in the Welsh National Portraits Exhibition (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1957) (). Christie's also claims: "No early portraits of Hester exist". In the present portrait, it must be admitted, Thrale does not look aged. A comparison of the three portraits at stake is salutary, the three portraits being (1) the original portrait painted by Pine in 1781; (2) the engraving of it issued by European Magazine in 1786; and the present portrait of unknown date by an unknown painter, which shows striking similarities in composition. In both the 1781 and 1786 portraits, the pupils and irises in Thrale's eyes are depicted as high on the eyeball, with much white of the eye visible immediately below. This gives a subtle impression that the subject is below the viewer, is looking up at the viewer. The visual connotation is one of deference. In both the 1781 and 1786 portraits, Thrale looks directly at the viewer. Also in both, there is a marked tendency toward the curvilinear in the rendering of nearly all aspects of the facial features. The eyebrows are crescent moons, the eyes are wide and large, the smile is mild yet very much in shape an upward arc, and the chin, though narrow, is rounded. In the present undated portrait, the opposite prevails. The eyebrows veer toward the rectilinear; no white of the eye is visible below the iris; the smile is gone or at least much, much milder, to the point that there is little significant upturn at the corners of the mouth; the gaze is not at the viewer, and not up, but instead focussed to the left of the viewer, into the distance, in a far-away look of meditation, or perhaps artistic, writerly reverie. The 1781 and 1786 portraits present a pale figure with, possibly, some emotional frailty or vulnerability being foregrounded. The present undated portrait renders Thrale -- envisions Thrale -- as solid, colourful, independent. It is also, perhaps, the most flattering portrait of Thrale extant. Someday, presumably, someone will identify its painter. I have not. Seller Inventory # 7080
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