Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton

by Sir George Hayter
oil on millboard, 1834
14 in. x 12 in. (356 mm x 305 mm)
Purchased, 1969
Primary Collection
NPG 4658

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Sir George Hayter (1792-1871), Portrait and history painter; son of Charles Hayter. Artist or producer associated with 198 portraits, Sitter associated with 16 portraits.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG 54: The House of Commons, 1833 (finished work)

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Ormond, Richard, Early Victorian Portraits, 1973, p. 216
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 288
  • 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. 168 Read entry

    Gilt compo on pine, mitred with butterfly keys. 3 1⁄ 2 inches wide. With label, partly damaged: ... ment to Her Ma .../Queen Adelaide & HRH the .../W.THOMAS,/CARVER & GILDER,/HOUSE AND ORNAMENTAL PAINTER,/ PAPER HANGER, DECORATOR &c./39, London Street, Fitzroy Square,/Workmen sent to any part of the kingdom.

    This sketch, one of Hayter's studies for his large picture now in the National Portrait Gallery of the 1833 Reformed House of Commons, was framed by William Thomas, framemaker to Queen Victoria, probably between 1837 and 1851 judging from the text of Thomas's label on the back of the frame. There is no uniform framing style for Hayter's House of Commons sketches, suggesting that many of them may have been framed by their first owners. The Gallery owns a finished Hayter portrait of the same period, that of Thomas Waghorn, differently framed but with the identical Thomas label on the frame. Hayter would have come across Thomas in the course of his work for Queen Victoria but whether this framemaker worked for him personally remains to be established.

    The construction of this frame is unusual, with butterfly keys used to join the mitres. The same feature is found on another William Thomas frame, that made for the portrait of J. G. Lockhart (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) by Francis Grant, another artist with links to Thomas (see NPG 6338).

Events of 1834back to top

Current affairs

Sir Robert Peel, Tory, replaces Whig Lord Melbourne as Prime Minister, promising measured reform in a shift from reactionary 'Tory' to more measured 'Conservative' politics (he had voted for the 1832 Reform Act).
Trial of Tolpuddle Martyrs, six labourers transported to Australia after trying to raise funds for workers in need by forming a Friendly Society.

Art and science

Charles Babbage's invents the Analytic Machine. Considered to be the forerunner to the modern computer, the machine was able to make automatic mathematical calculations.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton publishes his hugely popular, but now largely neglected, novel Last Days of Pompeii, set in the Italian city at the time of Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79AD.

International

Dom Miguel I, King of Portugal, is defeated by his brother Pedro IV, in the Portuguese civil war.
Slavery is abolished in the British dominions, although slaves still working are indentured to their former owners in an 'apprenticeship' system; the philanthropist Joseph Sturge was a prominent critic of the policy, which was abolished in 1838. Whilst slave owners received compensation, slaves received nothing.

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