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Thomas HudsonPortrait of a senior naval officer, c. 1750s1750s
1750s
$33,740.63
£24,500
€28,658.11
CA$46,155.50
A$50,231.37
CHF 26,627.60
MX$604,321.73
NOK 337,723.49
SEK 308,993.35
DKK 214,097.81
About the Item
Thomas Hudson (Devon 1701 - London 1779)
Portrait of a senior naval officer, c. 1750s
Probably a captain or admiral; half-length, holding a telescope, with a warship beyond
Oil on canvas
91.3 x 71.1 cm.; (within frame) 114.3 x 93.8 cm.
Provenance:
Christie’s, London, 22 November 1985, lot 105 (as Thomas Hudson);
Private collection, United Kingdom;
Haynes Fine Art, Broadway, Worcestershire;
Where acquired, private collection, United States, 16 August 1988;
Neal Auction, New Orleans, 14 September 2025, lot 302 (as Attributed to Thomas Hudson);
Where acquired by Haveron Fine Art.
Literature:
Bridgeman Art Library, The Bridgeman Art Library (London: The Library, 1995), p. 89
Christie’s, London, Important English Pictures (London: Christie’s, 22 November 1985)
Archival:
Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art (no. 061487);
Heinz Archive and Library, National Portrait Gallery, 1725-50, Thomas Hudson: Men Authentic (1) (Box)
This attractive and quintessential half-length is exemplary of Hudson’s leading portrait practice, produced at the height of his decade-long dominance over the London market beginning in 1749. Typical of Hudson's 1750s output, the portrait was likely made after his five-week visit to Rome and Naples, and bares the stylistic merits of this continental excursion. Indeed, the trip seemed to fortify a gradual refinement of Hudson’s technique: namely the emphasis of directional brushstrokes, which sensitively follow the contours of the facial features. The resulting feathery quality is combined here with a striking chiaroscuro effect, which Hudson borrowed directly from Rembrandt. Amalgamating the rich colouring of the Rococo with a mannered Baroque posing, Hudson renders the senior naval officer with a characteristic presence.
Resting one hand assuredly at his hip, the finely worked telescope illustrates the officer’s seniority; the warship sailing on the horizon beyond provides further indication of his commanding rank. The telescope is held by a hand modelled with sculptural poise, and the typically Van Dyck manner (seen elsewhere, e.g. Princess Amelia Sophia Eleonore of Great Britain, YCBA B2001.2.246) further illustrates Hudson's studied grounding. Despite the apparent stylistic placement of the work, an earlier date is possible, since the officer wears civilian clothes and not the naval officer’s uniform first introduced in 1747 (which officers afterwards invariably chose to be shown in). The officer has previously been suggested as Edward Henry Sartorius, of the prominent naval Sartorius family; however, this identification is improbable on biographical and documentary grounds.
Hudson was regularly commissioned by leading naval officers, and produced highly satisfactory portraits praised for their great likeness and genteel swagger. He charged 24 guineas for a standard 50 x 40 inch half-length in the 1750s period, and the present work (somewhat smaller in size) would have cost not much less. Comparable works include those of Admirals of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, and Sir John Norris; Admiral Sir George Pocock; Admiral Sir Peter Warren; Vice-Admiral The Honourable John Byng; and Rear-Admiral Richard Tyrrell. The present portrait is particularly similar in composition to Hudson’s Portrait of a Flag Officer of The White Squadron, which similarly employs the narrative device of a telescope held at a dynamic angle across the composition, with a warship to the left side of the officer’s retracted arm.
Thomas Hudson (Devon 1701 - London 1799)
Thomas Hudson rose to become the leading British portraitist of the mid-18th century, albeit in close competition with his Scottish counterpart Allan Ramsay. Born in Devon, Hudson studied alongside George Knapton under Jonathan Richardson the Elder (marrying his daughter in 1725, expressly against Richardson’s wishes), and inherited a dignified formality jointly derived from Van Loo. His work is first recorded in 1728, and between 1730-40 he practised in Bath and the West Country, where in addition to portrait commissions, he was employed to retouch and reline old pictures. He returned permanently to London thereafter, and devised a series of stock poses to which he would return with variation throughout his career. Beginning in 1745 with the death of Richardson and the departure of Van Loo, Hudson became the city’s most successful portraitist, and embarked on ambitious defining works such as his Portrait of Theodore Jacobsen ‒ not drastically unlike the continental heights of Pompeo Batoni in conception. Profiting from his success, he relocated from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to a house in Great Queen Street previously inhabited by Van Loo, and one door down from Kneller’s old rooms. An exceptionally productive period began in 1749 which lasted until the late 1750s. Among this output were highly praised portraits of the Prince and Princess of Wales, commissions for most of the preeminent aristocrats, and superlative group portraits including Benn’s Club of Aldermen, and those of the Thistlethwayte, Marlborough and Radcliffe families.
Hudson relocated to King Street, Covent Garden, operating a prolific studio operation which resulted in some four hundred paintings ‒ of which at least eighty were engraved. A prodigious assembly of young pupils included Sir Joshua Reynolds (1740-3), Joseph Wright of Derby (1751-3, 1756), Richard Cosway, John Hamilton Mortimer, and the drapery painters Joseph and Alexander van Aken (also employed by Ramsay). As one later reviewer expressed: ‘Hudson, his art may well display to sight / Who gave Mankind a Reynolds and a Wright’ (Miles, ‘Introduction’). The ambitious young Reynolds made many drawings from classical statuary under Hudson’s instruction, and wrote home that, ‘While doing this I am the happiest creature Alive (sic.)’ (Sweetser, p.12). However, he was later dismissed from his pupilage some two years prematurely for refusing to carry a painting to Van Aken’s studio in the rain. It was at this point that Reynolds returned to Plymouth (Devonport), and produced some thirty portraits of the local gentry (including one example presently owned by Haveron Fine Art).
Hudson was one of a number of artists who congregated in Old Slaughter’s Coffee House, alongside Hogarth, Ramsay, Hayman, and Rysbrack. Together they supported Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital, of which they each belonged to the 600 governors (in whom Hudson met many of his future clients), and promoted the building as London’s first public space of artistic exhibition. He visited the Netherlands and France for five weeks in 1748 accompanied by St Martin’s Lane colleagues, and was arrested with Hogarth for making drawings of the Bastille fortifications. He afterwards stayed in Rome and Naples in 1752 with Roubiliac, meeting Reynolds twice on the return journey. He returned to England and bought a house at Cross Deep, Twickenham (upstream from Pope’s villa), and made an effective museum of the space. He lived there with his second wife, a wealthy widow named Mrs Fynes. Having been involved with early attempts to establish a royal academy of the arts, Hudson exhibited at the Society of Arts in 1761 and 1766, although he had effectively retired from painting by the latter date. His last painting was in 1767, and he died at Twickenham in January 1779 aged seventy-eight.
Hudson was also exceptional for the extensive collection of artworks which he amassed during his lifetime. The collection was thoroughly impressive in extent, and included outstanding Old Masters: Breughel, Canaletto, van Dyck, Hals, Holbein, Kneller, Lely, Michelangelo, Parmigianino, Poussin, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tintoretto, Titian, Vasari, and Velázquez. His earliest recorded purchase was in 1741, and he spent heavily at the sale of his father-in-law, even buying works jointly with Van Aken. Likewise, at the posthumous 1750 sale of Van Aken, Hudson spent £215 on the second day (nearly half that day’s sale total). As a pupil, Reynolds had been sent to bid for Hudson in Lord Oxford’s sale of 1742, and proudly recalled having been greeted with a handshake by Hudson’s friend Pope at another picture sale. Hudson also collected extensively from within his own generation, acquiring works by contemporaries including Gainsborough, Reynolds, Richardson, Rysbrack, Vanderbank, and his predecessor Van Loo. Following his death, the works were dispersed in two sales at Messrs. Langford, with the finer works sold at Christie’s in 1785 after the death of his second wife. However, his connoisseurship was not without flaw ‒ having outbid Benjamin Wilson for a Rembrandt drawing, Wilson etched and printed a new ‘Rembrandt’ plate which was sold to Hudson through a dealer, before later being exposed with delight by Wilson and Hogarth.
I am grateful to Ellen Miles (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution), for her expertise, having published some of the more thorough writings on Hudson's life and works. I am also thankful to Dr Nicholas Rodger (Emeritus Fellow, All Souls, Oxford) for his assistance and insight into the naval history of the period.
Bibliography and further reading:
Greater London Council, Thomas Hudson, 1701-1779, Portrait Painter and Collector, A Bicentenary Exhibition (London: Greater London Council, 1979)
Ellen G. Miles, ‘Introduction’, in Thomas Hudson, 1701-1779, Portrait Painter and Collector, A Bicentenary Exhibition (London: Greater London Council, 1979)
Ellen G. Miles, “Portraitist to the British Establishment” (Yale University, 1976)
Moses Foster Sweetser, Artist Biographies, Vol. 3 (Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1880)
Jane Turner, The Dictionary of Art, Vol. 14 (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 841-842
- Creator:Thomas Hudson (1701 - 1779, British)
- Creation Year:1750s
- Dimensions:Height: 45.01 in (114.3 cm)Width: 36.93 in (93.8 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement Style:
- Period:1750-1759
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Henley-on-Thames, GB
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2820217413642
Thomas Hudson
Thomas Hudson (1701–1779) was an English painter, almost exclusively of portraits. Hudson was born in Devonshire in 1701.
His exact birthplace is unknown. He studied under Jonathan Richardson in London and, against the latter's wishes, married Richardson's daughter at some point before 1725.
Hudson was most prolific between 1740 and 1760 and, from 1745 until 1755 was the most successful London portraitist. He had many assistants, and employed the specialist drapery painter Joseph Van Aken.
Joshua Reynolds, Joseph Wright and the drapery painter Peter Toms were his students.
Hudson visited the Low Countries in 1748 and Italy in 1752.
In 1753 he bought a house at Cross Deep, Twickenham, just upstream from Pope's Villa.
He retired toward the end of the 1750s. William Hickey described the elderly Hudson, "His figure was rather grotesque, being uncommonly low in stature, with a prodigious belly, and constantly wearing a large white bushy periwig. He was remarkably good tempered, and one of my first-rate favourites, notwithstanding that he often told me I should certainly be hanged.".
He died at Twickenham in 1779. His extensive private art collection was sold off in three separate sales.
Many of Hudson's works may be seen in art galleries throughout the United Kingdom. They include the National Portrait Gallery, the National Maritime Museum, Tate, Barnstaple Guildhall, Foundling Museum and the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.
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