James Smetham

Inscriptionback to top

Label on blue paper removed from backing paper inscr. in ink: ‘Study from himself’;
and in ballpoint: ‘James Smetham’.

This portraitback to top

This is one of three self-portraits from the decade 1844 to 1855 (see ‘All known portraits’). His appearance accords with the description by his close friend William Davies of Smetham’s features in ‘youthful manhood’ as delicate, harmonious and proportionate, ‘the forehead well-pronounced, lofty and expansive; the nose aquiline, not over-prominent; the mouth firm, rather small, delicately cut; the lips ample, inclining to fullness; the chin refined in mould’. [1]

Although the full-frontal, staring gaze makes for somewhat uncomfortable viewing, stylistically the work contains elements such as the facial highlights favoured in the suave chalk portraiture of the late 1840s by George Richmond and others.

The exact date of execution is not recorded, but appears to be later than that of the oil of 1844, which offers a bolder, ‘juvenile Byron’ presentation. Here, the hair is less tousled, and the cheeks show incipient whiskers, which suggest a date mid-way to that of the 1853–5 oil. According to an earlier note in the NPG Archive the date c.1845 is ‘based on the apparent age of the sitter, and a comparison with the [1855] self-portrait … It clearly represents Smetham ten or so years before.’ [2] He wears ‘a blue cap, which looks Scottish, but is probably of Yorkshire origin where he was born’. [3]

From around 1846 to 1850, following a mental breakdown, Smetham was by his own account ‘shut up in a happy seclusion’, unable to participate in social life:

so I went on painting portraits and interspersing them with fancy pictures, gaining money enough to keep me, and then snatching a month or two for study; now in a large town, now in a little one, now in a remote farm painting the farmer and his family, and roaming in his fields and by the edge of his plantations. [4]

Selby, Manchester, Warrington and Liverpool were among the places he visited, before returning to London in 1850. It is possible that the present work was done towards the latter date, when Smetham recorded in his diary a resumed desire for ‘the society of those who can perceive and sympathise with my aims … I see the truth and I love it, and, I think, can henceforth never be content to pursue lower truths than I have been led to perceive. If, then, I myself be trusted to seek “fresh woods and pastures new”, my spirit pants for them.’ [5]

Together with the 1853–5 oil self-portrait, the present work remained with Smetham’s family until offered for sale by Mrs Prynne Hutton, who described it as ‘really little more than a sketch’. [6] Both works were considered by the Trustees, who preferred the lesser work, no doubt owing to the cracked and bitumenized surface of the oil as well as to its higher valuation. [7] The 1844 self-portrait was also in family possession until its presentation to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Prynne Hutton’s father.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) From the memoir in Smetham & Davies 1891, p.30.
2) Unsigned, undated memorandum (early 1966), NPG RP 4487. This note describes the medium as ‘watercolour and pencil on paper’, indicating it was based on a ‘sight’ viewing, probably by Richard Ormond, before the work came to the NPG.
3) Unsigned, undated memorandum (early 1966), NPG RP 4487. 4) Letter from J. Smetham to J. Ruskin, 16 Nov. 1854, printed in Smetham & Davies 1891, pp.2–7.
5) Diary entry, c.1850; quoted Smetham & Davies 1891, p.16.
6) Letter from Mrs Prynne Hutton to R. Ormond, 23 Jan. 1966, NPG RP 4487.
7) See note 2 above.

Physical descriptionback to top

Head, looking to front, brown hair, wearing blue cap.

Provenanceback to top

The artist’s widow Sarah Smetham, his daughter Helen Smetham Hutton, his grandson Prynne Hutton, from whose widow purchased 1966.

View all known portraits for James Smetham