Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Oglethorpe

James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785)

Colonist of Georgia; educated Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford; entered army 1710; served under Prince Eugene; MP for Haslemere 1722-54; chairman of the parliamentary committee on debtor's prisons, 1729; obtained a charter for settlement of Georgia, as a refuge for paupers and a barrier for British colonies against Spanish aggression, 1732; encountered, during his administration of the new colony, much opposition, owing to his prohibition of negro slavery and rum, and had difficulties with the Wesleys and Whitfield; successfully, and partly at his own expense, defended Georgia against the Spaniards, allying himself with the Indians, but failed in an attack on St Augustine, 1740; named brigadier-general, and returned to England, 1743; major-general serving in Lancashire against the Jacobites, 1745; was accused by Cumberland of misconduct, and though acquitted, did not return to military life; Oglethorpe married 1744, Elizabeth daughter of Sir Nathan Wright, 2nd Bart.

2153a Copy by Alfred Edmund Dyer, [1] c.1927 after the portrait in the group ‘The Georgia Council' by William Verelst c.1735-36

Oil on panel, 5 ½ x 4 ½ in. (140 x 115 mm); in a khaki painted oval; blue eyes, light brown eyebrows, white wig; white shirt open at collar, plain blue coat; brownish-grey background, lit from left. Stamped 1 on the back.

Head and shoulders copy from the whole length standing figure of Oglethorpe in the group in the Shaftesbury family collection at St Giles until 1931 (see above, 1st Earl of Egmont, and Stephen Hales).

Condition: yellowed varnish, slight losses in background along the top and lower left edges.

Collections: bought from the artist, 1927.

Exhibited: 'Georgian Essex', Valence House, Dagenham, May 1958; 'The British Face', Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, October 1967.

Literature: O. Manning and W. Bray, The History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, 1804-14.

Iconography

A head-and-shoulders portrait in armour, at Oglethorpe University, Georgia, 1932, is the only version of its type recorded at the NPG. [2] A later and different three-quarter length is known only from T. Burford's mezzotint lettered General . . . Commander in Chief . . . in Carolina and Georgia (CS 12); from his rank it must have been published 1743-45. The small reversed engraving by S.F. Ravenet for Smollett's History of England 1757 (O'D 2) derives from it. A portrait by Reynolds, to whom Oglethorpe sat in March 1780, was burnt in the fire at Belvoir and never engraved. [3] Samuel Ireland's near-caricaturead vivum etching at Dr Johnson's book sale 18 February 1785 is the latest extant type. Manning and Bray reported a 'three-quarters portrait of the General [Oglethorpe], and another of his Lady, are in the family of the late Mrs. Dickinson of Totenham, who was executrix of the latter'. [4] Oglethorpe is probably the chairman in Hogarth's 'Committy of the house of Commons'. 1729 (see NPG 926, below).

Notes

1. Mr Dyer was an artist with a considerable practice in copying historical portraits. Other copies by him are in the collection of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, and elsewhere.
2. Known only from a photograph.
3. Leslie and Taylor, pp. 285, 312.
4. I, p.613.