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Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne

3 of 17 portraits of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne

by William Hoare
pastel, circa 1752
24 in. x 18 in. (610 mm x 457 mm)
Given by Walter John Pelham, 4th Earl of Chichester, 1887
Primary Collection
NPG 757

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • William Hoare (1707-1792), Portrait painter. Artist or producer associated with 74 portraits, Sitter in 6 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This pastel, though faded, remains a lively portrait and was presumably taken from the life. It depicts the Duke with the blue ribbon and star of a Knight of the Garter. It is one of a number of portraits of the Duke and his family made by William Hoare in the 1750s. More detailed information on this portrait is available in a National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue, John Kerslake's Early Georgian Portraits (1977, out of print).

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Kerslake, John, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p. 193
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 457
  • Simon, Jacob, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain, 1997 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 8 November 1996 - 9 February 1997), p. 93, 162 Read entry

    Carved and gilt pine, mitred and keyed, 3 1⁄ 8 inches wide.

    This pastel of the celebrated Whig statesman, the Duke of Newcastle, has a Maratta frame of fairly standard type, which can be found on some of Hoare's work of the 1750s and 1760s, including his portrait of Miss Gower in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Hoare later used a

    Maratta frame with the same motif of the acanthus-and-tongue ornament (but placed on the sight edge rather than in the scoop) for some of his portraits in oils such as that of Christopher Anstey and his daughter of c.1775 (National Portrait Gallery, on loan to Beningbrough Hall).

Events of 1752back to top

Current affairs

Calendar Act (also known as Chesterfield's Act after Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield) comes into force, abolishing the old Julian calendar and adopting the more accurate Gregorian calendar. The year now begins on 1st January rather than 25th March.
Parliament passes a bill to bestow estates forfeited by Jacobites to the Crown and use the revenue to develop the Scottish Highlands.

Art and science

Artist William Hogarth publishes his influential book The Analysis of Beauty which presents his ideas about aesthetics.
Charles Avison publishes Essay on Musical Expression; the first work of musical criticism published in English.
Obstetrician William Smellie introduces scientific midwifery.

International

Benjamin Franklin flies a kite into a thunder cloud to demonstrate the nature of electricity.
Georgia becomes a royal colony; the last of the thirteen American colonies.
French seize or evict every English-speaking trader in the region of upper Ohio. Liberty Bell arrives in Philadelphia.
Robert Clive forces the surrender of French troops in the aftermath of the Siege of Trichinopoly in India.

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