GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS OM RA (1817-1904). Portrait of Willi...

Hammer

£900

GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS OM RA (1817-1904). Portrait of William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), quarter-length, oil on canvas, 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 in.

Watts painted the sitter on two occasions.
The first portrait, dateable to 1859 is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
A second unfinished portrait (believed to be this work) was created c. 1876-1880 and was worked on at intervals within this period. It was never exhibited, remained in the Watts Collection, then that of his widow Mary, at their Compton Home, Limnerslease. In 1938 according to Watts Gallery records it passed to the Watt's ward, Mrs Lillian Chapman. There appears no record of when it left her possession, though she sold or gifted several of the Watts works in her life-time. After her death, her family sold several of the Watts works in her life-time. After her death her family sold paintings through Sotheby's Belgravia
Mary Watts documented her husband's completed oil paintings in a manuscript catalogue, extensively illustrated with photographs.The two volumes are hald at the Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey. The secnd Gladstone portrait is catalogued and illustrated in the portraits volume, p69. The dimensions given in that catalogue 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 in being identical to this portrait. In her catalogue entry Mary Watts notes 'some twelve years later (than the 1859 portrait) Mr Gladstone again sat to Mr Watts.It may be said roughly during the years 1876-1880, but this at long intervals.The portrait desired for Christchurch, Oxford but abandoned and Sir William Richmond's painting is in th Great Hall. Mr Gladstone often referred to the pleasure conversations with Mr Watts had given him'.
There is a more detailed account of the portrait in M.S.Watts 'George Frederick Watts 'The Annals of an Artist's life, Macmillan and Co. Ltd 1912. The account of the painting of the portrait is in vol 1 pp 305-6 (where it seems the disposition of the two to talk was a factor in the delay and ultimate abandonment of the portrait) and a reference to the place of the portrait in the house and Watts tribute on hearing of Gladstone's death in vol 11, p 273