Josiah Spode I

1 portrait

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Josiah Spode I

by Unknown artist
watercolour and bodycolour on ivory, circa 1790-1795
3 in. x 2 3/8 in. (76 mm x 60 mm) oval
Purchased, 1967
Primary Collection
NPG 4586

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Unknown artist, Artist. Artist or producer associated with 6577 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Ingamells, John, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p. 443
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 581
  • Walker, Richard, Miniatures: 300 Years of the English Miniature, 1998, p. 69 Read entry

    The two Spode portraits, father and son, are probably by an artist employed in the family firm of one of the great names in English porcelain. Josiah Spode II succeeded his father and developed the manufacture of porcelain, especially the willow pattern, into a world-famous product. The artist is not known at present but Frederick Buck has been suggested as a possibility. The Gallery also has Pitt Club medals, c.1810, of Josiah Spode II and III by William Tassie.

Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1790back to top

Current affairs

Attempts to modify the Test and Corporation Acts are defeated, despite campaigning by dissenters such as the prominent Unitarian preacher and pamphleteer, Richard Price. The Acts prevented those outside the established church from holding government or military office.

Art and science

Joseph Mallord William Turner exhibits his first painting at the Royal Academy; a watercolour of The Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth.
The Firth to Clyde and Oxford to Birmingham canals are begun.

International

Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France. A landmark work of opposition to the Revolution which offered a critique of the radical philosophy behind events in France; the Reflections have been read as an articulation of the foundations of modern British conservatism. George Vancouver explores the north west coast of America.

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Vicky Dawson

20 July 2016, 15:16

This portrait is very similar to one by Nathaniel Freese acquired in 2013 by the National Trust at the auction of the contents of Trelissick House in Cornwall.
A label on its reverse links it to the Spode's great grandson Josiah Spode IV.