Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Williams
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams (1708-59)
Satirical writer and diplomatist; son of John Hanbury; assumed name of Williams, 1729; educated at Eton; MP for Monmouthshire, 1734-47, and Leominster, 1754-59; paymaster of marine forces, 1739-42; KB, 1744; envoy to court of Dresden, 1747; envoy extraordinary at Berlin, 1750, at Dresden, 1751-53, Vienna, 1753, again at Dresden, 1754, St Petersburg, 1755-57; died by his own hand. He published numerous occasional satirical verses and other writings; a fairly complete collected edition appeared, 1822.
383 Attributed to John Giles Eccardt, c.1746
Oil on canvas, 35 7/8 x 28 ½ in. (911 x 714mm); green eyes, grey brows, grey wig, pale complexion; brown coat with Bath star, white cravat and cuffs; green chair, green table top. with Bath ribbon, brown books, silver inkstand and red sealing wax; paper in sitter's hand inscribed: An Ode / To the Honble Henry Fox;dark olive green background.
Inscribed in upper left-hand corner: Sir Chas. Hanbury Williams.
Scharf wrongly attributed NPG 383 to Mengs. [1] Several portraits of this type have been recorded, some the same size, others approximately half life-size. [2] One of the smaller portraits, which belonged to Horace Walpole, [3] is known to have been painted by Eccardt in 1746; [4] hence the attribution and dating of NPG 383. Others of this type include one damaged by enemy action 1939-45, which belongs to Lady Hanbury Williams. Another was engraved by Harding in 1800 when it belonged to the Rev. Duncan Davies of Monmouth. In all the known portraits of this type except NPG 383 the paper in the sitter's hand is inscribed Isabella. or the Morning, the title of Williams' verses on the Duchess of Manchester, which appeared in 1740. 'The Ode to the Right Hon. Henry Fox', which alludes unflatteringly to the Duchess's marriage to Edward Hussey, was published in 1746.
Condition:a large V-shaped tear above the right hand has been restored; small retouched patch beneath the right cuff.
Collections:Given 1873 by Mrs Charles Richard Fox, widow of the 3rd Baron Holland's eldest (natural) son; presumably by descent from Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, Williams' intimate friend.
Engraved:a primitive engraving of NPG 383 forms the frontispiece to the second volume of Williams' Works, 1822.
Iconography
The earliest likeness is a quarter length portrait by James Worsdale (collection J.M.A. Hanbury-Williams) dated 1733 on the back of the canvas. [5] Next is Vanloo's three-quarter length of 1744 (collection Lady Hanbury Williams). A quarter length version of the Vanloo belonged (1934) to Reginald Duke Hill of Holfield Grange, Coggeshall; a studio copy (?) is in Leominster town hall.
A portrait by Mengs, begun at Dresden and finished in Rome, 1753, was destroyed c.1939-45. This painting was given by Williams to his daughter Lady Essex, exhibited in the 'NPE' 1867 (288), sold in the 1922 Cassiobury sale, Knight, Frank & Rutley, 15 June, lot 846, and subsequently acquired by the late Sir John Hanbury Williams. It was copied by Reynolds c.1757 [6] and engraved by R. Rhodes.
Two miniatures after the Mengs portrait are recorded. One was executed by Serre[7] in 1755 for Williams' daughter Charlotte; the other, presumably one of the two miniatures of Williams which were in the Cassiobury sale, was in the collection of Lord Malden in 1794 when engraved by W.N. Gardiner for Harding's Biographical Mirror. Another miniature of Williams, from the collection of Lord Beauchamp, was exhibited at the Royal Academy, 'British Portraits', 1956-57 (238).
Neither the ivory relief by Pozzi in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, [8] nor the so-called portrait of Williams by Reynolds in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, bears any resemblance to the established likenesses.
Notes
1. Scharf, pp.475-76.
2. See Steegman, II, pp.54, 157, 158.
3. Bought by G.M. Daubeney of Cheltenham at the Strawberry Hill sale, 19 May 1842, lot 29; one of those in the Blue Bed Chamber (see under Thomas Gray, NPG 989), it has since disappeared.
4. Henry Harris to Sir C. Hanbury Williams, Chelsea College, 13 September 1746, Hanbury Williams MSS, formerly in Newport Library.
5. The Bath star was added later.
6.SeeGraves and Cronin, p.1055.
7. D. Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, I, 1972, p.500.
8. See Burlington Magazine, LXXI, 1937, p.282.