The Plaster Busts of Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)
at the Royal Dublin Society.
Part 2.
The Plaster Bust of Jonathan Swift after the Original Marble
in Trinity College Library
Dublin
by Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Jonathan Swift DD
Engraving
Paul Foudrinier
after Jervas
Plate size 355 x 262 mm.
c. 1718
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
Jonathan Swift
Engraving
George Vertue
Plate size 372 x 262 mm.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Engraving of Jonathan Swift
Ravenet
after the original Portrait by Rupert Barber 1745
now in the NPG.
British Museum
Engraving of Jonathan Swift
S Wheatley
after the original Portrait by Rupert Barber 1745
now in the NPG.
National Gallery of Ireland
Mezzotint of Jonathan Swift
After Pelham
Engraved Bowles
Dean Jonathan Swift
Francis Bindon,
(Irish) A Former Pupil of Kneller.
oil on canvas 73.2 x 63.5 cms.
Formerly with Philip Mould Historical Portraits.
This description lifted from the above website -
Extensive
label verso Mrs Ridgeway, Housekeeper to Dean Swift, married post 1745 John
Land Sexton of St Patrick''s; Miss Rachael Ridgeway, her daughter, married Rev.
John Wisdom; Descent in the Wisdom family; Bought from Miss Wisdom 1838 by
William Maguire.
It is noted on the label verso that this
portrait''s frame is made from wood taken from St Patrick''s Cathedral Dublin
at the time of its renovation.
Where Swift had sat in England in 1718 to Charles Jervas, in Ireland he chose Francis Bindon to produce a series of portraits produced from sittings in 1735. Jervas and Bindon had in common that they were the only native Irish artists to have studied at Kneller's Academy, though it is most likely that Swift was their only mutual client.
This vigorous and uncompromising image may well derive more directly from the 1735 life sittings than the hyperbolic full-length of that year (Howth Castle), in which the painter employs a cast of allegorical figures to commemorate Swift''s victory over the potentially ruinous introduction of Wood''s copper coinage. This event places the Bindon portraits at a significant moment in Swift''s career. The dispute over the coinage allied Swift for the first time with incipient separatism in Ireland, against the Government in England and against his former assertion that he was in every way an Englishman ''though he happened to be dropped'' in Ireland.
Swift himself responded to the exercise characteristically, writing in June 1735: ''I have been fool enough to sit for my portrait at full-length by Mr Bindon.'' Whatever reservations he may have had, however, regarding the rhetorical excesses of the full-length portrait, it is undeniable that this present portrait, showing the sitter in undress and in his own hair, offers a compelling and moving image of the great satirist facing a disillusioned old age.
Where Swift had sat in England in 1718 to Charles Jervas, in Ireland he chose Francis Bindon to produce a series of portraits produced from sittings in 1735. Jervas and Bindon had in common that they were the only native Irish artists to have studied at Kneller's Academy, though it is most likely that Swift was their only mutual client.
This vigorous and uncompromising image may well derive more directly from the 1735 life sittings than the hyperbolic full-length of that year (Howth Castle), in which the painter employs a cast of allegorical figures to commemorate Swift''s victory over the potentially ruinous introduction of Wood''s copper coinage. This event places the Bindon portraits at a significant moment in Swift''s career. The dispute over the coinage allied Swift for the first time with incipient separatism in Ireland, against the Government in England and against his former assertion that he was in every way an Englishman ''though he happened to be dropped'' in Ireland.
Swift himself responded to the exercise characteristically, writing in June 1735: ''I have been fool enough to sit for my portrait at full-length by Mr Bindon.'' Whatever reservations he may have had, however, regarding the rhetorical excesses of the full-length portrait, it is undeniable that this present portrait, showing the sitter in undress and in his own hair, offers a compelling and moving image of the great satirist facing a disillusioned old age.
Andrew Miller
After Francis Bindon
Mezzotint 355 x 254 mm.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Engraving after Francis Bindon.
Engraving Jonathan Swift by van Aken (Vanhaeken).
after Markham
25 February, 1740.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Jonathan Swift
Anonymous engraving.
1752
© National Portrait Gallery, London
