Portrait of George Friederic Handel
Thomas Hudson (1701 - 1779).
1701 Devonshire - 1779 Twickenham.
Sold Hampel Fine Art Auctions Munich Lot 282, 7April 2016
Pastel on paper.
39.7 x 32.8 cm.
Inscribed, dated and signed “Hudson. f. this one Day of June
1743/ George Friederic Handel” in brown ink along the lower edge.
Framed with glass in gilt frame topped with rocaille
ornament.
Accompanied by a detailed report listing comparable examples
and relevant bibliographical references.
Provenance:
Auction Hotel Drouot, Paris, 12 September 1920, lot 196.
Belgian private collection.
Literature:
John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, volume I, London
1977, p. 124.
I am very grateful to Julia Semmer of the Handel House Museum for alerting me to this very important dated image of the composer.
________________________
Handel
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
From the website of Art UK.
Described there as:
c. 1730.
Three-Quarter-Length Portrait of a Seated Gentleman Wearing
a Wig and Brown Coat
Thomas Hudson (1701–1779) (circle of).
To my eye a more than competent portrait of Handel perhaps a little earlier than the pastel by Hudson above.
No provenance
oil on canvas
H 145 x W 127 cm
The portrait on the staircase at the Trinity Laban Conseratoire in Greenwich.
The frame appears to be later than the portrait with applied musical motifs in composition
perhaps late 18th Century
Once again I am very grateful to Julia Semmer.
_______________________
Handel
Thomas Hudson
1749
Handel was portrayed in 1749 and 1756 by Thomas Hudson. The older of the two pictures was discovered in 1869 by the
Hamburg Handel researcher Friedrich Chrysander in the home of Handel's descendants, in
Calbe on the Saale and acquired by Chrysander.
He left the painting to the Hamburg merchant
Friedrich Gültzow with the condition that it be transferred after his death to the
Hamburg City Library, which happened in 1883.
