William Gale

Inscriptionback to top

On mount below print, photographic facsimile of sitter’s autograph.

This portraitback to top

This photograph was created during the 1860s for David Wilkie Wynfield’s series of artists portrayed in historical and contemporary costume, many of which were released for sale from March 1864 under the title The Studio: A Collection of Photographic Portraits of Living Artists, taken in the style of the Old Masters, by an Amateur. The portrait appeared in Part 5, ‘After the Flemish Schools’, alongside Wynfield’s images of (Myles) Birket Foster, Charles Keene and Thomas Oldham Barlow. Ten of Wynfield’s portraits were registered in December 1863, but Gale’s was not among them; this suggests it may have been created early in 1864.

Gale is shown turning his head towards his right shoulder and the camera, with his left hand holding across his body a dark cape, beneath which a deep lace collar and cuff are visible. Wynfield appears to have taken his inspiration from Van Dyck’s male portraiture and perhaps especially that artist’s triple likeness of Charles I, in the Royal Collection since 1822. [1] The only known self-portrait of Gale from around the same period as Wynfield’s photograph shows him with a smaller ‘Vandyke’ or goatee beard. Characteristically, Wynfield positioned Gale’s head against a split light/dark background. According to Juliet Hacking, this is ‘a particularly successful example’ of Wynfield’s technique: ‘the area of shadowed background is paired diagonally with the dark-coloured cloak. These two patches of dark sepia are separated by the pale finger that extends to meet Gale’s light-coloured shirt. The patch of light provided by the hand balances that behind Gale’s head….’ [2]

William Gale lived all his life in London and from 1858 was based at the artists’ studios in Langham Place. With others in this series, he was a member of the 38th Middlesex (Artists’) Rifle Volunteers raised in 1860. [3]

Additional prints of this photograph are in the collection at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (03/5749), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1978P426) and the Royal Photographic Society, Bath (1939p).

See NPG collection P70–P100

Magdalene Keaney

Footnotesback to top

1) Royal Coll., Windsor, RCIN 404420.
2) Hacking 2000, p.17.
3) Dafforne 1869, p.375.

Physical descriptionback to top

Quarter-length, half-profile to right, left hand to chest, wearing historical costume.

Provenanceback to top

Gift of Henry Saxe Wyndham, 1937.

Exhibitionsback to top

Victorian Worthies, Alexander Gallery, London, 1976 (2).

Reproductionsback to top

Hacking 2000, p.9.

View all known portraits for William Gale

View all known portraits for David Wilkie Wynfield