Portrait of George and Ann Harvey

Original Oil Painting on Canvas

by Jacob Thompson (British, 1806–1879)

• Signed and dated lower left. 
• Provenance; Sotheby's London, 3rd November 1993, Lot 99.  Sold for £16,675.00 GBP.  Please see the photograph section for a snapshot of this auction result.  A copy of the Sotheby's catalogue will be included with this painting.
• Exhibited; Cumberland, The Carlisle Exhibition, 1846.
• Literature; Llewellyn Frederick William Jewitt, F.S.A., The life and works of Jacob Thompson, London, 1882, pp. 20 & 99.
• Auction record £166,500.00 GBP.
• Painting - 104cm x 81.5cm 
• Frame - 124cm x 102cm

Lot Notes

In this charming picture, Jacob Thompson combines the sensitive and characterful portraits of George and Ann Harvey at the ages of nine and three, with a dramatic and detailed representation of the local landscape of their birth, celebrating the beauty of art and nature with the same brush. Penrith born and Cambridge educated, George Tyson Harvey M.A. (1837-1907) grew up to be a scholar and clergyman, the Rector of St Mary Magdalene in Lincoln and later Vicar at Navenby, Lincolnshire. The children’s portrait was almost certainly commissioned by their parents John and Margaret (née Tyson) Harvey, local patrons of the artist from Penrith, who owned along with this portrait, ‘one of Mr Thompson’s youthful pictures of a scriptural subject’. As well as the present work, Llewellyn Jewitt documents that Thompson executed individual portraits of Mr and Mrs Harvey, George and a Miss Tyson (most likely the children’s maternal Aunt).

The painting has a wonderful provenance having been sold by Sotheby's London in 1993 for £16,675.00 GBP.

The painting is featured in Llewellyn Jewitt's 1882 book The Life and Works of Jacob Thompson.

Condition

In pristine 'gallery' condition.  Professionally lined and conserved in the late 20th century.  Presented in a good quality wood and gilt composite frame.

Artist Information

Jacob Thompson was an English landscape-painter.  Jacob, eldest son of Merrick Thompson, a manufacturer of linen check and a well-known member of the Society of Friends, was born in Lanton Street, Penrith, Cumberland, on 28 August 1806. His father was then in prosperous circumstances, but the depression of trade caused by the War of 1812 brought about his failure. Young Thompson's aspirations to become an artist met with little sympathy from his family, and he was apprenticed to a house-painter; but he struggled with energy and perseverance against these adverse influences, and devoted all his leisure time to his favourite pursuit. He at length attracted the notice of Lord Lonsdale, and with his help he came in 1829 to London with an introduction to Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), and became a student at the British Museum and the Royal Academy.  He began to exhibit in 1824, when he had in the first exhibition of the Society of British Artists a "View in Cumberland," but he did not send a picture to the Royal Academy until 1832, in which year appeared "The Druids cutting down the Mistletoe." This was followed in 1833 by a picture containing full-length portraits of the daughters of the Hon. Colonel Lowther. His next exhibit was "Harvest Home in the Fourteenth Century," which appeared at the British Institution in 1837, and was presented by the artist to his patron, the Earl of Lonsdale. After this date he painted portraits, views of mansions, &c., but he did not exhibit again until 1847, when he sent to Westminster Hall "The Highland Ferry-Boat," which was engraved in line by James Tibbits Willmore. "The Proposal" appeared at the Royal Academy in 1848; "The Highland Bride," likewise engraved by Willmore, in 1851; "Going to Church: Scene in the Highlands," in 1852; "The Hope Beyond," in 1853; "The Course of true Love never did run smooth," in 1854; "The Mountain Ramblers," in 1855; "Sunny Hours of Childhood" and "Looking out for the Homeward Bound," in 1856; and "The Pet Lamb," in 1857. He painted in 1858 "Crossing a Highland Loch," which was engraved by Charles Mottram; but he did not again exhibit until 1860, when he sent to the Royal Academy "The Signal," which was engraved by Charles Cousen for the Art Journal of 1862. In 1864 he had at the academy "The Height of Ambition," engraved by Charles Cousen for the Art Journal, as was likewise by J. C. Armytage "Drawing the Net at Hawes Water," painted in 1867 for Lord Esher, but never exhibited. "Rush Bearing" and a view of Rydal Mount are among his best works.  In his later years Thompson devoted himself chiefly to landscape subjects with figures, the themes of which were for the most part drawn from the mountains and lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, but occasionally from Scotland. His range, however, was limited, and his work was lacking in poetic sympathy. His attempts at classical and scriptural subjects, such as "Acis and Galatea," exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1849, and "Proserpine," were not a success. His last work was "Eldmuir, or Solitude." Thompson died at the Hermitage, Hackthorpe, Cumberland, where he had lived in retirement for upwards of forty years, on 27 December 1879, and was buried in Lowther churchyard. His first wife was a sister of George Parker Bidder, the celebrated calculator and civil engineer.  A portrait of Thompson, drawn on wood by himself, and engraved by W. Ballingall, is prefixed to his Life by Llewellyn Jewitt.  Penrith and Eden Museum has works by Jacob Thompson on display, including 'The Druids Cutting Down the Mistletoe', which shows figures in a wooded clearing in the Eden Valley with the Bronze Age stone circle of Long Meg and Her Daughters, one of Eden’s iconicmonuments and tourist destinations, clearly visible in the distance.

General Information

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