1745
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
John Thomlinson and His Family is a 1745 oil by Arthur Devis, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A man sits stiffly in a red chair. His wife stands beside him. Two small kids peek from behind the furniture. Everyone wears fancy clothes. The painting shows a family portrait from 1745. Notice how the artist made the folds in the dresses look real. The gold frame matches the red chair. This style was popular in England then. If you like this work, try Arthur Devis.
By descent from the sitters to Major Henry Howard, 34 Nevern Square, London, to at least 1937 [Pavière 1936/7]; offered for sale, Christie's, London, 18 December 1931, lot 80, bought-in. Arthur Tooth and Sons, Ltd., London, by 1948 [see Art News 1948 and New Haven 1980]; sold to the Art Institute, 1956.
Preston, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Work by Lancashire Artists, 1937, no. 4. London, Arthur Tooth and Sons, Recent Acquisitions, 1948, no. 2. New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis and His Contemporaries, 1980, no. 13, cat. by Ellen Gates D’Oench.
A.S. Turberville, ed., Johnson’s England: An Account of the Life and Manners of His Age, vol. 2, Oxford, 1933, ill. opp. p. 154. Sydney H. Pavière, "Biographical Notes on the Devis Family of Painters," Walpole Society 25 (1936-37), p. 121, no. 4, pl. 41b. “The Devis Exhibition: Eighteenth-Century English Painting,” Illustrated London News 190 (20 March 1937), p. 503 (ill.). Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, Three Tours through London in the Years 1748, 1776, 1797, New Haven, 1941, ill. opp. p. 20. Art News 47 (June 1948), p. 3 (ill.). Sydney H. Pavière, The Devis Family of Painters, Leigh-on-Sea, 1950,…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Arthur Devis (19 February 1712 – 25 July 1787) was an English painter whose father, Anthony, was progenitor of what became a family dynasty of painters and writers.
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