Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Willes

Sir John Willes (1685-1761)

Chief Justice of Common Pleas; MA Trinity College, Oxford, 1707; fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; barrister, Lincoln's Inn, 1713; MP, 1722-37; judge on Chester circuit, 1726; attorney-general, 1734; knighted, 1734; chief justice of common pleas, 1737; senior commissioner of great seal, 1756-57.

484 From the studio of Thomas Hudson, 1744
Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 in. (1270 x 1017 mm); pale grey eyebrows, blue eyes, thin nose curving down, narrow lips, long white wig parted in centre, pale complexion; collar of ss, scarlet justice's robes with black sash; his left hand on a leather-bound quarto book lettered REGISTRUM on the table, beside which is a quill, ink-stand and paper; green-backed chair, dark brown background.

Inscribed on a column, left: T. Hudson. Pinxit.

A standing portrait by Hudson was in existence by 1741, the first state of Faber's engraving (CS 385); in the second state the date is altered to 1742. The whereabouts of this painting is unknown. NPG 484 probably represents a second sitting. It is a good and perhaps the best of known versions, the others being at Trinity College, Oxford, [1] Lincoln's Inn (acquired before June 1947), and what seemed to be a 19th-century copy sold with other family portraits from the collection of the late W.A. Willes, Sotheby's, 3 May 1961, lot 135.

Condition:varnish now rather discoloured; surface cleaned, polished, varnished and restored between 1877 and 1895; lifting paint secured in 1940.

Collections:presented 1877 by the Hon. Society of Judges and Sergeants-at-Law.

Engraved:John Faber junior, dated 1744 (CS 386); Mrs Poole also mentions an engraving by Johnson, 1746. [2]

Iconography

A three-quarter length type attributed to Charles Jervas in the Willes sale, lot 133 (seeabove), was catalogued as representing him when chief justice of Chester, which office he held from 1729to 1734. On comparison with authentic types, it probably represents the same sitter; the identity might be confirmed by a close examination of the seal-matrix open on the table. Unquestioned portraits, however, date only from his term as lord chief justice. He was painted by Vanloo, presumably during the latter's visit to England from 1737 to 1742. A version, perhaps that lent by Mrs M. Willes, as a Hudson, to the 'NPE' 1867 (254) was lot 134 of the Willes sale (seeabove). The Vanloo type was engraved by Vertue in 1744.

Notes

1. That at All Souls College, Oxford, is a copy by George Hayter; Poole, II (40).
2. I have not seen an impression.