Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Granby

John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721-70)

Soldier; eldest son of 3rd Duke of Rutland; served in Flanders 1747; colonel of the royal regiment of horse-guards (Blues) 1758; as lieutenant general, succeeded Sackville in Europe and became the popular hero of the Seven Years' War; master-general of the ordnance 1763; commander-in-chief of land forces, Great Britain, 1766; MPfor Grantham, and Cambridge.

1186 After a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, c.1759
Black chalk heightened with white, on grey paper 20 7/8 x 15 ¼ in. (531 x 387 mm), laid down on cardboard 21 ¼ x 15 ½ in. (540 x 394 mm); bald, sparse hair at nape of neck; black stock, double-breasted uniform coat; black background encircling head. A label with a number 195 now removed to the picture dossier.

A perhaps contemporary, or near contemporary, copy of the head of one of the two portrait types by Reynolds of c.1759 or 1766, both face masks very similar. Waterhouse dates the former to 1760 [1] but from Reynolds' note of December 1759 'Copy. Ld. Granby half length for Lady Aylsford' [2] and a payment, among others recorded in his ledgers, for a Kit-cat of Granby before 1760, it must be somewhat earlier. [3] The prototype is not certainly established. Among a number of portraits corresponding to C. Spooner's mezzotint dated 1760 there was one given, with a payment noted for April 1764, [4] to Mr Shaftoe, now collection Sir Allan Adair, Bart. Another from the Egremont collection, at Christie's, 21 May 1892, lot 94, belongs to the Earl of Wemyss. Reynolds' equestrian portrait, sittings in June 1764 and 1766, with an appointment for his horse at 11, 3 June 1765, [5] was given to the Maréchal de Broglie, Granby's defeated opponent: 'Lord Granby, with a Horse. Given to, Marshal Broglio . . .’ [6] Exhibited at the Society of Artists 1766 (137) it is now owned by the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, USA. Repetitions are in the Royal collection (Millar, 1969, II, 1022), and at Trinity College, Cambridge, [7] with variants at Belvoir, Petworth, and formerly at Stowe. [8] A gouache (9 ¼ x 7 ½ in.) similar to NPG 1186, belonged c.1926to Lt-Col. G.B. Croft Lyons.

Condition: a little rubbed in the face; a small round damage in the background, right.

Collections: bought, 1899, from Graves & Co, London.

Iconography

A crayon drawing inscribed Le Marquis de Granby, peint a Konstantinople par Liotard, 1740 [9] and a miniature after Reynolds [10] are at Belvoir Castle, the Rutland family seat. Ramsay's portrait of the sitter at Audley End painted 'before he went into the Army' [11] for his friend John Dodd's gallery at Swallowfield, is signed and dated 1745. [12] Following his successes as commander of the British forces in Germany, portraits of Granby were in great demand and Reynolds remained the chief supplier until as late as 1786. In a letter dated 20 February that year to the 4th Duke of Rutland, he writes: 'I am now about Lord Granby with the horse and Swiss servant, which I think will be finished in a week's time, and if the reumatism will give me leave, for I am very stiff and awkward at present, I hope in about a fortnight after to finish the children'. [13] The miniature noted by Duleep Singh at Spixworth Park [14] and a whole length in Cincinnati probably derive from the Reynolds types. A portrait by Edward Penny showing the sitter giving alms, was exhibited at the Society of Artists, 1765 (96); [15] versions are in the Ashmolean Museum, given by the artist in 1787, the National Army Museum and at Petworth. Granby was painted by Morier c.1760and appears in a group with George III and general officers by Quadal, 1772, both pictures in the Royal collection (Millar, 1969, 956, 995).

A bust was taken by B. Rackstrow, 1763, owner of a museum at 197 Fleet Street [16] and another, posthumous, by Ceracchi, is now at Belvoir. [17] Flaxman and Pingo exhibited waxes in 1768 and 1773respectively. [18] A bust by Nollekens with a version at Belvoir and another, dated 1814, in the Royal collection, may represent the sitter. [19] James Williams exhibited ‘a painting in imitation of a print' at the Society of Artists, 1770 (268) and c.1785Horace Walpole noted a large enamel by Humphry at the Queen's House (Buckingham Palace). [20] Granby's popularity is reflected in such pieces as the Bow porcelain statuettes, an example of which is in the Willett collection, Brighton. [21]

Notes

1. Waterhouse, 1941, p.48.
2. Sitter book, opposite 17 December 1759.
3. Cormack, p.120.
4. Ibid, p.I21.
5. Leslie and Taylor, p.253, note 2.
6. Cormack, p.152: ‘Paid in Full—£250 0 0', 3 July 1773.
7. Ibid, for references to further portraits.
8. SSB, XLV, p.137.
9. Lady Victoria Manners, 'New Light on Liotard', Connoisseur, XCI, 1933, p.295.
10. Ibid, p.303, fig.xi.
11. BM Add MS 6391, f.6.
12. R.J.B. Walker, Audley End: catalogue of the pictures in the state rooms, 1964, p.22 (6); ‘Allan Ramsay', RA, 1964 (7).
13. Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed. F.W. Hilles, 1929, pp.148-49.
14. Duleep Singh, II, p.315 (52).
15. Walpole Society, XXVII, p.74.
16. Gunnis, p.314.
17. Ibid, p.90.
18. Exh. Society of Artists, 1768 (148) and 1773; Gunnis, p.305.
19. Gunnis, p.278.
20. Walpole Society, XVI, p.79.
21. Reproduced, Connoisseur, XLIV, 1916, p.184.