Images(2)

Portrait of Colonel Sawbridge (?-?)

Date1773

Artist Ozias Humphry (1742-1810)

MediumWatercolor on ivory glued to cardstock

DimensionsIvory Primary Support: 1 7/8 x 1 3/8in. (4.8 x 3.5cm); Cardstock Secondary Support: 3 1/8 x 2 7/16in. (7.9 x 6.2cm); Oval Composition: 1 3/4 x 1 1/2in. (4.4 x 3.8cm); and Framed (together with 4 other miniatures, includ. top ornament): 8 7/16 x 8 9/16in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1985-290

DescriptionA miniature, unfinished, bust-length portrait of a blue-eyed, red-haired man, his body turned slightly to the left, his head to the right, his gaze directed 3/4 to the right. He wears a red coat with blue facings and a white shirt and neckcloth. The background is stippled and hatched in blue, the portions closest to the sitters' shoulders being darker. The oval format is marked off in pencil on a larger rectangle of ivory, the ivory glued to a still larger rectangle of cardstock.
When purchased at auction 27 March 1985, this image was group-framed with 1985-149, -289, -291, -292, and -293.
Label TextOzias Humphry's biographer, George Williamson (1918), opined (pp. 77-78) that "the most pleasing miniatures that remain of Humphry's work are undoubtedly those which he never completed; his sketches on ivory being extraordinarily beautiful. In portraiture they must have been absolutely accurate, in colouring and composition they are full of charm, and they far exceed in intrinsic beauty his more elaborately finished works. He has delineated all that was necessary to form a portrait, and did we but know him from his unfinished works, his position in the art world would be of far higher importance than it is."

Certainly this sketchy, unfinished, quickly rendered image shows how successfully and economically Humphry could capture a sitter's salient features.

The inscription on the back of the portrait's secondary support would seem to identify the subject, calling him a brother of "Alderman Sawbridge," i.e., of John Sawbridge, Esquire, of Olantigh, Lord Mayor of London in 1775. However, John Sawbridge's only brother known thus far would appear to be an unlikely candidate for the miniature subject: Wanley Sawbridge took holy orders, was rector of Thundersley in Essex and vicar of Stalesfield in Kent, and died unmarried in 1796.

InscribedOn the back of the cardstock secondary support in script in brown ink is "Coll. [with second "l" superscript? This first word is open to interpretation; could it be Co J?] Sawbridge/Brother/to Alderman Sawbridge/O: H: pt/1773 ----/2". Below the preceding is a script inscription in green reading: "[E/S?] oval".
ProvenancePossibly from the artist to his natural son (and godson), William Upcott (1799-1845); to his friend, Charles Hampden Turner; to various, now-unidentified owners; to David S. Lavender, CWF's vendor.