Thomas and Charlotte Neate with their Tutor Thomas Needham by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Signed and dated Joshua Reynolds pinxit 1748.
Currently on Display in the Metropolitan Museum New York.
For more on the subjects of this portrait see the entry for the Seward bust of Alexander Pope in this blog.
A Transcription from the Walpole Society Journal 6 (1917 -18) - "Two Early works of Sir Joshua Reynolds .pp105.
This
seems to have been the first composition of several figures which
Reynolds attempted. Its success must have spurred him on to attempt a
similar feat on a larger scale. The group of ' Thomas and Martha
Neate with their Tutor', which is here published for the first time
(Plate XLIII), is probably the first group approaching life-size
which Reynolds painted. The canvas measures 66 x 71 in., and is
signed and dated, ' JA REYNOLDS PINXIT 1748.'
The
group is placed in a landscape, the two children, Thomas Neate and
his sister, being raised on a stone step similar to that employed in
the Eliot Family group. Martha Neate stands upright in the centre,
holding a basket of flowers in her left hand, her right holding a
pink scarf which falls over her arm. She has dropped some of the
flowers out of her basket, some lying at her feet, and some caught in
the folds of her white satin dress. There is a bright blue ribbon
tied round her waist. A small lace cap covers the back of her curly
auburn hair. She seems to be about five or six years of age, and she
looks straight at the spectator with that arch look of suppressed
merriment which we find in the 'Miss Bowies', now in the Wallace
Collection, and in so many of Reynolds's delightful portraits of
children. Her brother, a lad some two years older, kneels on her
right picking up the flowers she has dropped. His expression is
graver than that of his sister, but his thoughtful face is as
charming, as truthful and convincing, as any boy's portrait painted
by Reynolds in after-life. The boy's rather elaborate blue Van Dyck
costume is trimmed with ermine. A yellow (or light brown) scarf is
tied round his waist. His grey felt hat trimmed with blue lies on the
ground beside him. He kneels on his right knee, his left hand holding
some of the flowers he has just picked up.
In
front of the two children is placed a lamb round whose neck the
straight lines of the stone step and connecting the two they have
hung flowers and a blue ribbon. The lamb's figure is the weakest
point in the picture ; it is badly observed and wooden, but it forms
an important link in the design, breaking children with the tall
figure of their tutor. The tutor stands in the right of the picture,
his left leg raised on the step, his right placed on the grass. His
body faces towards the children, but his head looks over his left
shoulder at the spectator. He is a young, clean- shaven man, wearing
his own hair. He is dressed in dark brown, the only touch of positive
colour in his costume being the corner of his blue satin waist - coat
which peeps out from under his coat. He holds a book in his left
hand, his right
being placed on his breast. The horizon is low down in the picture,
so that most of the tutor's figure is relieved against the sky. The
left half of the background is filled with a dark brown pillar and
dark red curtain, the straight line of the pillar which falls
just behind the head of the girl being broken by the freely painted
branches and foliage of a tree.
The
general colour effect of the picture is higher in key and brighter
and fresher than in Reynolds's later works. There is also less
contrast between the lights and shadows. The flesh, both in the faces
and hands, is delightfully fresh in colour, the warm shadows being
mostly put in with burnt sienna, with Venetian red for the accents,
reinforced, in the girl's head, with Vandyck brown.
The
handling of the paint is vigorous and free, loose and fluid in the
back - ground and in the tutor's figure and face, and more solidly
built up in the chief lights which fall on the boy and girl. The
lovely carnations of the young girl's face and neck, and her vivid
white dress set off by the bright colours of the flowers and ribbons,
are skilfully connected with the highest lights in the sky.
The
gay rich colours prove the original bent of Reynolds's genius. He was
born colorist, before the example of the Bolognese painters and their
theories about ' historical colouring ' led him to paint for many
years almost in mono - chrome,
and to regard positive colour as one of the deadly artistic sins. It
was only towards the end of his career that his natural love of
colour asserted itself again, but he could never recapture the
freshness and careless gaiety of colour of his youthful work.
Of
the artist's relations with the Neate family and the conditions under
which the picture was painted we know almost nothing. There is a
tradition in the Neate family that the father of the two children was
a friend of the young artist, and a diary once in the possession of
Miss Eleanor Neate recorded a payment to Reynolds for a portrait, but
the sum mentioned was thought too small to apply to this portrait
group. An old label on the back of the picture gives us a little help
it says :
'
Boy the paternal grandfather of the Rev. A. Neate. Girl
sister of the above married - - Williams of ...., Esq. re Tall
figure Needham tutor of the Boy. Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds'.
Portrait of Joseph Vandewall, only child of Samuel Vandewall and his wife Martha by Joshua Reynolds. Born on 26 July 1745 at Brabant Court, Philpot Lane, City of London. He died on 28 February 1748, The
painting
was sold by Christie's London, 1 December 2000, lot 31.
Provenance
- by
descent to Commander C.E. Neate; Sotheby's London, 3 July 1956, lot
31, (1,350 gns. to Agnews). It was sold by Agnews to Vice-Admiral
B.C.B. Brooke, 1957. It was acquired through Agnews by Sir Michael
Sobell, 1959.
Note. I would dearly like to find the diary of Eleanor Neate (mentioned above) if it still exists. The payment to Reynold is for the portrait of Joseph Vandewall - son of Sam. Vandewall and his wife Martha the former wife of Harris Neate - father of Thomas and Charlotte. This diary could shed much light on the lifestyle and purchases of Samuel Vandewall and his family.
See more on the Vandewall / Neate families in the previous entry on the Seward bust of Pope and in the following biography of the Vandewall / Neate Families.
The
picture is mentioned in Cotton's list of Reynolds's works (p. 55), as
Thomas Neate and his Sister. Children of Mr Neate, of Binfield,
Berks, with their tutor '. Graves and Cronin copy this entry,
altering the name, evidently in error, to ' Neete '. They say that it
belonged in 1857 to the Rev. A. Neate, and add that ' a portrait of
the Neete (Neate) family by Reynolds was offered to the National
Portrait Gallery, 17 Jan. 1870, by Miss Mary Neete (Neate) of
Bampton, Farringdon '. It passed by inheritance to Commander Charles
B. Neate, R.N., who died in 1916, and we have to thank his son,
Captain Arthur C. Burnaby Neate, R.F.A., for his kindness in
permitting us to photograph and publish this interesting example of
Reynolds's work.
The
two children represented in the portrait are Thomas Neate and his sister
Martha, who became afterwards Mrs. Williams. The earliest mention of
Thomas Neate we can find in the ordinary books of reference is the statement, in Burke's Landed Gentry, that his daughter Amelia married
Allen Edward Young, Esq., of Orlingbury, Co. Northampton, in 1804. He
is mentioned in Lyson's Magna Britannia (vol. i, p. 241) as living in
Pope's House, Binfield, Co. Berks, in
1806, but it is not stated how long he had been established there.
Pope resided at Binfield till he purchased the villa at Twickenham in
1719, so the Neates may have been living there in 1748, when Reynolds
painted the two children, but we have found no evidence bearing on
the point. In 1807 Thomas Neate's wife died (Gentleman s Magazine,
1807, p. 789). He himself died in March 1825, aged 84 (Gentleman's
Magazine, 1825), so he was born in 1741, and was seven years old when
Reynolds painted his portrait. His will is preserved at Somerset
House. It was made on November 2, 1814. In it he mentions his sister,
Mrs. Martha Williams, so she too lived to a good old age, and a '
Miss Mary Williams of Monmouth '. Other names mentioned are his son,
the Rev. Thomas Neate and his wife Catherine, his two unmarried
daughters, Charlotte and Martha (Charlotte became the wife of Mr.
John Hodgson by the time the will was proved), and his married
daughter, Amelia, wife of Mr. Young of Orlingbury. He seems to have
been in easy circumstances, for besides the house and land he left a
sum of £7000, shares in a lead company, gold and silver cups and
plate, a chariot and horses, saddle horses, &c.
One
would naturally like to know more about the bewitching young girl who
became in after life Mrs. Martha Williams, but we have not been able
to discover any further information.
End of the article from the Walpole Soc. Journal. (1917 -18).
Detail of the Neate children in 1748 by Joshua Reynolds in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Portrait of Mrs Vandewall by George Knapton (is this the same Spaniel as in the portrait of Joseph Moore Vandewall pictured above?)
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A history of this family will follow shortly.
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