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William Boyce

4 of 102 portraits by John Russell

William Boyce, by John Russell, 1776 -NPG 4212 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

William Boyce

by John Russell
1776
23 3/4 in. x 18 7/8 in. (603 mm x 479 mm)
NPG 4212

Inscriptionback to top

Indistinctly signed in red chalk above his right sleeve Russell/1776; inscribed verso: Dr Boyce/Painted by J Russell (in red, probably an early nineteenth-century hand).

Physical descriptionback to top

Brown eyes, pale grey coat with gold buttons.

Provenanceback to top

[Commissioned by George III for Samuel Wesley, his Court Musician, together with pastels of Handel, Corelli and Kelway, see NPG 4213; thence to the Simms family ‘in payment of a debt’1] Miss Leat, Yelverton, 1915; Mrs Mary Simms, Yelverton, from whom purchased 1961.

1 This provenance was given by Mary Simms in letters of 19 January and 6 February 1961. NPG 4212 was listed as ‘missing’ by C. G. Williamson, John Russell, 1894, pp 48, 127.

Exhibitionsback to top

RA 1777 (310, 'Portrait of Dr Boyce', oval, in crayons).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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