Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Hardwicke

Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke (1690-1764)

Lord Chancellor; worked in office of a London solicitor, 1706-08; barrister, Middle Temple, 1715; MP from 1719; solicitor-general, 1720; attorney-general, 1724; chief justice and created Baron Hardwicke, 1733; lord chancellor, 1737; presided as lord high steward at trials of rebel lords, 1745, responsible for anti-Jacobite legislation; FRS 1753; created Earl of Hardwicke and Viscount Royston, 1754; resigned his offices, 1756.

872 Studio of (?) Michael Dahl
Oil on canvas, 49 ½ x 39 ½ in. (1257 x 1003 mm); blue eyes, mid-brown eyebrows, double chin, pale complexion, full-bottom white wig with centre parting; black brocaded chancellor's gown over black velvet coat, matching waistcoat and knee breeches, elaborate lace cravat and wrist ruffles; red-lined armchair surmounted with earl's coronet, chancellor's purse on a table, right; plain brown background; lit from the left.

Inscribed in gold script, top left: Philip Earl of Hardwicke/ Viscount Royston appointed/ Lord High Chancellor/ Of Great Britain/ 20th Feb: 1736/7.

Although the handling is somewhat hard and mechanical, the design of NPG 872 is undoubtedly Dahl's and the treatment reminiscent of his portrait of Pope (q.v. below, NPG 4132). Another portrait in the same pose, now known only from Faber junior's engraving of 1735, shows the sitter as lord chief justice with a baron's coronet on the table. The earl's coronet in NPG 872 appears to be an alteration by a later hand. Hardwicke received the earldom in 1754; Dahl died 1743. A head and shoulders engraving by Bockman (CS 10) suggests a further portrait by this artist after Hardwicke became chancellor in 1737.

Condition: retouchings in face; surface cleaned, polished and varnished between 1891 and 1902; pin holes in corners.

Collections: bought, 1891, as by Hudson, with Henry Pelham (q.v. below, NPG 871) from the Earl of Chichester's collection, Stanmer Park; not apparently recorded before 1888 when noted there by Scharf [1] and, in view of the sitter's connections with Pelham, possibly at Stanmer since painted.

Engraved: a crude head and shoulders of the type, without coronet, published in the Universal Magazine, 1764, engraver unknown.

Exhibited: presumably 'Royal House of Guelph', 1891 (26), as by Hudson.

466 By William Nelson Gardiner, c.1800, after a portrait by William Hoare, 1763
Water-colour on paper, 10 ½ x 8 ½ in. (265 x 214 mm); on a buff mount with a single black rule, 12 x 9 ¾ in. (305 x 247 mm); grey wig, chancellor's gown; red-lined chair; stippled brown background.

Inscribed in pencil on the mount: Phil. Lord Hardwicke Gardiner delin.

After the portrait of 1763 by Hoare formerly 'at Wimple', [2] the Hardwicke seat, and probably connected with the engraving for the British Cabinet, 1800, made and published by E. Harding for whom Gardiner worked. A Hoare also inscribed 1763 was formerly at Wrest Park; another is at Antony House.

Condition: surface cleaned and varnished, June 1879.

Collections: presented, 1877, by the Hon. Society of Judges and Serjeants at Law, to whom given from the collection of Mr Serjeant Halcombe.

Iconography

A small whole length as a baron in the robes of lord chief justice, datable to 1733-37, was presented to the Middle Temple in 1825 as by 'Arnold Van Straechen'. The portrait was at one time attributed to Vanhaecken, perhaps A. Vanhaecken known only as a drapery painter. [3] All subsequent portraits, as in NPG 872, show the sitter as chancellor. Faber junior engraved a head ad vivum in 1737. A portrait by James Wills, in the Middle Temple, is inscribed 1740 and was engraved by McArdell, 1744. A whole length by Ramsay, inherited through the marriage of the 2nd Earl of Hardwicke to Jemima Campbell, afterwards Baroness Lucas, was formerly in the Lucas collection at Wrest Park; smaller versions are at Hagley and Lincoln's Inn. An engraving by Baron is lettered 1742. A whole length by Hudson in the Bute collection is inscribed 1757. The type, engraved three-quarter length, in reverse, by Faber junior and dedicated to Herring when Archbishop of Canterbury, 1747-57, is possibly from a second sitting. The silhouette dated 1758, collection H.W. Wollaston (seeabove, Thomas Gray) was probably taken in Cambridge that year. The last portrait is presumably the Hoare of 1763, discussed under NPG 466 above.

Hardwicke, as Sir Philip Yorke, solicitor general, is possibly represented in the group 'Court of Chancery' by Benjamin Ferrers (see below, Groups, NPG 798). He may also be the sitter 'Philip Yorke, 1. E. of Hardwicke, Ld Chancr by Ramsay . . . also by Reynolds' recorded by Musgrave at Wimpole, 1798. [4] No such portrait by Reynolds is now known.

Notes

1. TSB, XXXIII, p.39.
2. i.e. Wimpole, J. Adolphus, British Cabinet, 1800, II (48). Several of the Wimpole portraits were dispersed in a sale, Christie's, 30 June 1888; notes from Scharf in the NPG archives suggest that the portrait of Hardwicke was put up for sale at that time, but it is not listed in Christie's catalogue.
3. See above, 1st Earl of Bath, NPG 337.
4. BM Add. MS 6391, f.19.