Thomas Shotter Boys
1 portrait of Thomas Shotter Boys
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- Extended catalogue entry
Early Victorian Portraits Catalogue
Thomas Shotter Boys
by Emile Aubert Lessore
1856
8 in. (203 mm) diameter
NPG 4820
Inscriptionback to top
Signed (bottom right): E Lessore
Inscribed on the back in enamel colour: T. S. Boys/53./anno 1856
This portraitback to top
Lessore exhibited portraits and landscapes at the Salon in Paris from 1831-69. In 1855 he began working for Sèvres as a ceramic painter. He came to England in 1858, and worked for several years with Wedgwood and Minton. The transparent, water-colour effect of NPG 4820 is very characteristic of Lessore's ceramic work, though no other portrait plaques of this kind have as yet been recorded; most of his extant work, on plates and other ceramic wares (a number of examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and elsewhere), consists of idealized and decorative figure subjects. However, Lessore evidently had some experience as a conventional portraitist, which would explain the high quality of the NPG plaque as a work of portraiture. He was a great admirer of the English water-colourists (see, for example, his attitude to Cox, Art Journal (1876), p 203, and consciously modelled his style on theirs. This would explain his connection with Boys, though there is no documentation for it. No other portraits of Boys are recorded. The signature on the plaque is difficult to decipher, but follows a common variant form. The attribution was confirmed by Mrs Helen Lessore, the wife of the artist's grandson.
Physical descriptionback to top
Healthy complexion, grey hair. Dressed in a white shirt, brown neck-tie and brown coat. Reddish curtain behind at left. Brown and greenish landscape at right, and above a blue and greyish sky. The plaque has one small chip, on the rim at the top.
Provenanceback to top
Purchased from David Collins, 1970.
This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Ormond, Early Victorian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1973, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.