1761
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Sir John Shaw and his Family in the Park at Eltham Lodge, Kent is a 1761 oil by Arthur Devis, a Rococo painting work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
The painting shows a family in a park, with Sir John Shaw and his family walking together. The family is dressed in formal clothes, which was typical for wealthy families at that time. They are also shown with their dogs, which suggests they enjoyed outdoor activities. The artist used a lot of detail to show the family's personalities, and to learn more about this style, look up the technique of glazing.
Presumably commissioned by the principle sitter, Sir John Shaw, 4th Baronet (died 1779), Eltham Lodge, Kent. William and Sutch by 1926 [see exhibition catalogue New Haven 1980 and letter of 22 August 1979 from Ellen D’Oench in curatorial file]; sold to Leggatt Brothers, London, 1926 [according to sources cited above]; sold by Leggatt Brothers to Emily Crane Chadbourne, Washington, D.C., 1926 [according to sources cited above]; on loan to the Art Institute 1932-1951; given to the Art Institute, 1951.
London, Free Society of Artists, 1763, no. 53, as “A Family with a View of a Gentleman’s House”. Detroit Institute of Arts, English Conversation Pieces of the Eighteeenth Century, 1948, no. 21, as “A Family in a Park” by Joseph Francis Nollekens. New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis and his Contemporaries, 1980, no. 39.
“Eighteenth-Century England,” Life 5 (October 25, 1948), p. 30, ill. Sydney H. Pavière, The Devis Family of Painters (Leigh-on-Sea, 1950), pp. 29, 34, 60, no. 146. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago. A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 127. Ellen Gates D’Oench, “Arthur Devis (1712-1787): Master of the Georgian Conversation Piece,” Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 1979 (Anne Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms, 1984), pp. 308, 379, no. 251, fig. 150. Beth Fowkes Tobin, Colonizing Nature. The Tropics in British Arts and Letters, 1760-1820…
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.
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
