British picture restorers, 1630-1950 - N

National Gallery, London

Not included here since institutional histories are outside the scope of this directory, but see Norman Bromelle, ‘Materials for a History of Conservation: The 1850 and 1853 Reports on the National Gallery', Studies in Conservation, vol.2, 1955, pp.176-88; Garry Thomson et al., ‘The scientific department of the National Gallery', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol.1, 1977, pp.18-28; David Bomford, ‘The conservation department of the National Gallery', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol.2, 1978, pp.3-10; Jaynie Anderson, ‘The first cleaning controversy at the National Gallery, 1846-1853', in Appearance, Opinion, Change: Evaluating the Look of Paintings, 1990, pp.3-7; Brooks 1999 especially vol.1, pp.12-53, 64-9; Nicholas Penny, ‘A note on conservators', in Penny 2004 pp.xiv-xv. The following restorers and suppliers in this directory worked for the Gallery: William Seguier 1824-43, John Seguier 1840-54, Thomas Boden Brown 1844, Francis Leedham 1855-7, John Bentley followed by his son Edward 1855-80, William Baldwin 1857-8, Henry Merritt 1858-77, Charles Buttery 1858-1874 or later, Raffaelle Pinti 1858-1876,George Morrill from 1859, followed by his son William 1865-95, Henry Farrer 1862, John Reeve 1878-9, William Dyer 1878-95, William Holder, William Holder & Sons 1923-36, Helmut Ruhemann 1934-72, Nigel Henderson 1936-9, Sebastian Isepp c.1939-40, c.1946-9, Johannes Hell 1947, Horace Buttery 1949. This is a provisional listing; it is hoped to explore further the period post-1879 for the next edition of this directory.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Not included here since institutional histories are outside the scope of this directory. For works on paper and miniatures, the National Portrait Gallery employed restorers from other museums including Frederick William Andrew and Stanley Littlejohn. For paintings, the Gallery employed Charles Francis James 1857 and subsequently, William Anthony 1858-60, George Barker 1858-60, Henry Merritt 1859-77, John Lewis Rutley 1866-71, Manfred Holyoake 1868-77, Seguier & Smart 1877, John Reeve 1878-85, Frederick Haines & Sons 1878-1919, William Dyer 1889-94, William Holder & Sons 1921-66, and subsequently, Horace Buttery 1961, Roy Vallance 1966, William Freeman & Son Ltd 1968. For sculpture, see William Bartlett & Co 1870-85, Frederick William Andrew, Bellman, Ivey & Carter Ltd 1905-17 and Brucciani & Co Ltd. For works on paper and miniatures, see Frank Nowlan 1901-17, William Grisbrook 1917-22 and W.J. Holoway & Sons 1923-8.

Alexander Nicholls, 27 Lucas Road, Kennington Park, London 1865, 5 Green St, Leicester Square 1868-1880. Print and book cleaner, printseller.

Alexander Nicholls (c.1823/30-1880?) was described by Andrew Tuer in 1882 as the factotum of the more celebrated Edward Evans (qv), print dealer, cleaner and restorer in the Strand, for whose business he worked until it closed in 1864. In censuses, he was listed as age 17 in 1841, age 35 in 1861 and age 41 in 1871, variously described as born in Westminster or Lambeth, suggesting a date of birth between 1823 and 1830. He was living with his mother Frances in Lambeth in 1841 and in 1861, when described as a shopman at a printseller, presumably the Evans business. He married Mary Ann Law in 1868 in the Newington registration district. By 1871 he was living with his wife at 38 Aldred Road, Walworth. He is probably the individual who died in 1880, age given as 56, in the St Saviour Southwark registration district. His prints were sold after his death by Sotheby's in two sales on 9 February and 12 July 1881.

Nicholls was listed in London directories as a printseller from 1868, being described as a printseller and print & book cleaner the following year. Nicholls' business card, dated in manuscript 4 November 1865, provides further details: ‘A. Nicholls, Assistant upwards of 26 years to Messrs. Evans, of the Strand, Print and Book Cleaner, Print Splitter & Re-layer of India Proofs, 27 Lucas Road, Kennington Park. S. Engravings and Drawings Inlaid and Mounted. Ink & Stains taken out of prints & books' (National Portrait Gallery records, NPG History Various Notes Late 19th century, 22.C.5). He supplied engravings to the National Portrait Gallery in 1872 (Duplicates of Accounts, vo.1, p.88).

Sources: Andrew White Tuer, Bartolozzi and his Works, vol.1, n.d but 1882, p.93.

Joseph Francis Nollekens, London from 1733, Dean St (later no.29) 1737 to 1748. Landscape, figure and conversation piece painter and picture restorer.

Joseph Francis Nollekens (1702-1748) was sometimes known as 'old' Nollekens, to distinguish him from his better-known son, Joseph Nollekens the sculptor. He came to England in 1733. According to George Vertue, writing following his death in 1748, ‘Nollekens' was born in Antwerp and educated in painting by his father and then when he came to England he worked with his fellow countryman, Peter Tillemans. As a Catholic, he married Mary Ann Lesack or Lesacque at the Sardinian embassy, 3 May 1733, and their children were baptised at the chapel of the Venetian ambassador: John Joseph in 1735, Joseph 1737, Maria Joanna Sophia 1739, James 1741 and Thomas Charles 1745 (National Archives, C 112/183, Chancery, Master Rose's Exhibits). His children are probably the subject of a pair of his small children's portraits, one dating to 1745 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven).

Nollekens lived in Dean St, near Soho Square, from 1737 to 1748 (F.H. Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London, vol.33, St Anne Soho, 1966, p.135, also available online at www.british-history.ac.uk). He died at his house, age about 42 according to Vertue, leaving behind a widow and children (Vertue vol.3, p.137; London Evening Post 21 January 1748). His collection of prints, books of prints, and drawings was sold in 1751 (London Daily Advertiser and Literary Gazette 4 November 1751).

Nollekens was extensively employed at Wanstead by Richard Child, Earl Tylney of Castlemaine. In 1742, he submitted a bill for cleaning and mending pictures for the Howard family (Sotheby's, English Literature and History, 16 December 1996 lot 102). ‘Noliken' is recorded as a buyer at a picture sale in 1744 (‘Sale catalogues of the principal collections of pictures..., 1711-1759', vol.2, ms, V&A National Art Library, 86.OO.19).

Sources: Vertue vol.3, p.137; Croft-Murray 1970 p.249; M.J.H. Liversidge, 'An Elusive Minor Master: J.F. Nollekens and the Conversation Piece', Apollo, vol.95, 1972, pp.34-41. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.

Stanley Kennedy North, 47 Bassett Road, London W10 by 1923-1926 or later, 31 Ladbroke Grove by 1931. Artist and picture restorer.

Stanley North (1887-1942) is said to have been the son of a London omnibus driver. He was recorded as an art student, born in Devizes and living in Fulham in the 1911 census. Later that year, he married Vera Rawnsley in the Kensington registration district; she would subsequently marry Clifford Bax. He was known as Stanley Kennedy North following his second marriage in December 1920 to Helen Dorothy Kennedy (1889-1975). He was a man of wide-ranging talents and colourful character with many connections. His interests included interior decorative painting and folk music. For an entertaining account of Stanley North's life, see his grandson, Richard D. North's website at www.richarddnorth.com/archive/elders_betters/stanley_kennedy_north.asp . For his second wife, see Hilary Clare, ‘Madam', Abbey Chronicle, no.6, September 1990, accessed at ‘Madam' - Hilary Clare ‎(EJO Society)‎.

North published a number of technical and popular papers on restoration, including 'Old Masters: Their Scientific Preservation', International Studio, August 1930, pp.22-5, ‘The Framing of Valuable Large Pictures', Burlington Magazine, vol.61, 1932, pp.12-13, and 'Pictures are not only Art', The Nineteenth Century and After, vol.122, July 1937.

North was entrusted by C.H. Collins Baker, Surveyor of the Royal Collection, to work on pictures in the Royal Collection but his largely untried and expensive methods led to difficulties, with King George V sceptical about North's approach (Millar 1977 p.209). Among works in the Royal Collection, North cleaned Duccio's tryptych in or after 1930 (Shearman 1983 p.94) and relined the Mantegna cartoons at Hampton Court, 1931-4, using a wax adhesive (Lloyd 2002 p.46; see also Andrew Martindale, The Triumphs of Caesar by Andrea Mantegna in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Hampton Court, 1979, pp.119-22).

North's work at Petworth, where he cleaned three paintings by Turner in the 1920s, was seen as so disastrous that Lord Leconfield decreed that no further pictures should be touched in his lifetime (Blunt 1979 p.119).

North treated some pictures in the collection of the Duke of Sutherland, including wax lining Titian's Venus Rising from the Sea in 1931 (National Gallery of Scotland) and x-raying, wax lining and cleaning Titian's Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto in 1933 (Duke of Sutherland, National Gallery of Scotland, see S. Kennedy North, ‘Titian's Venus at Bridgwater House' and ‘The Bridgewater Titians II', Burlington Magazine, vol.60, 1932, pp.58-63 and vol.62, 1933, pp.10-16; Humfrey 2004 pp.95, 160).

For Samuel Courtauld, North cleaned Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and Renoir's La Loge (both Courtauld Institute of Art; see The Times 26 September 1934); his work on the latter was subsequently criticised by Sir Kenneth Clark, who implied in 1939 that he had overcleaned the man's head when discussing further cleaning by Helmut Ruhemann (qv) (British Library, Add.MS 52434 f.18). North was responsible for conserving watercolours by J.S. Cotman in the collections of Russell J. Colman (now Norwich Castle Museum) and S.D. Kitson (The Times 19 September 1936, 6 July 1937).

Sources: Obituary, The Times 23 January 1942. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.

Frank Nowlan, 187 Euston Road, London 1866-1870, 10 Parliament St, Dublin 1871-1872, 115 Grafton St, Dublin 1874, 17 Soho Square, London 1872-1898, The Elms, London Road, Cheam, Surrey by 1881-1911 or later, 8 Percy St, Tottenham Court Road 1899-1919. Artist and restorer of miniatures, drawings and works of art.

Frank Nowlan (c.1835-1919) was born in or near Dublin in about 1835. He is said to have settled in London in 1857 and to have studied at Leigh's School of Art and the Langham School of Art. He was recorded as a miniature painter, age 24, lodging at 49 Warren St in the 1861 census and as an artist in subsequent censuses. He married Susanna Haxley in 1861 at St Pancras Old Church. In the 1871 census they were living at 187 Euston Road and in 1881 at the Elms, London Road, Cheam, his age given as 43, with three daughters. One of his daughters, Carlotta, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1894-1900. He appears with his wife, Susanna, as having been married 49 years, as an artist painter, still living at the Elms, in 1911 census. He died in 1919 at the age of 84 in the Epsom registration district. Several of his works were included in a posthumous sale held at Forster's on 23 July 1919 (The Times 21 July 1919).

Nowlan exhibited in various exhibitions in London and Dublin from 1866 to 1916. He was listed as an artist from 1882 to 1915 in Post Office London trade directories. He is said to have been patronised by the Royal Family and to have invented the unforgeable cheque. He gave his portrait, drawn by Frederick Walker at Leigh's School in 1858, to the British Museum in 1911 (British Museum collection database).

Nowlan restored a drawing for the British Museum in 1899, Bernard Orley's The Parable of Dives and Lazarus (A.E. Popham, Catalogue of Drawings by Dutch and Flemish Artists... in the British Museum, vol.5, 1932, p.34). The same year, he gave a print by Edward Burne-Jones, apparently the artist's only known lithograph (British Museum, 1899,0706.1, information from Sheila O'Connell). He restored miniatures at the Wallace Collection in 1901 (Graham Reynolds, Wallace Collection Catalogue of Miniatures, 1980, p.28) and was described in 1922 by D.S. MacColl, Director of the Wallace Collection, as the ‘well-known miniature restorer' (Burlington Magazine vol.40, 1922, p.234).

Nowlan undertook occasional restoration work for the National Portrait Gallery, 1901-17, on pastels, drawings, wax medallions and miniatures, including renovating William James Müller's miniature Self-portrait in 1902 for £1.1s, restoring Ozias Humphry's pastel, 3rd Earl Stanhope, for £4.4s in 1904, and cleaning James S. Deville's plaster head, William Blake, for £2.15s in 1919 (National Portrait Gallery records, Duplicates of Accounts, vols 5 to 8). He also repaired and copied George Romney's pastel, William Cowper, in 1905, shortly before its acquisition by the National Portrait Gallery (see Ingamells 2004 pp.127-8 and n.12).

Sources: Daphne Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, 1972, p.425.

Noticed a mistake? Have some extra information? Who should be added to this directory? Please contact Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.