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John Alexander Gresse

1 of 110 portraits matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Crayon'

John Alexander Gresse, by Unknown artist, circa 1770 -NPG 4196 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

John Alexander Gresse

by Unknown artist
circa 1770
11 1/8 in. x 8 5/8 in. (283 mm x 219 mm)
NPG 4196

Inscriptionback to top

There is an illegible (modern) pencil inscription top right [ ... /30], and a contemporary pencil inscription below:

Mr Alexr Grasse held ye appointment of Drawing Master to the Princesses till his Death in 1794. this Portrait was taken when he was about 30. He afterwards grew remarkably corpulent. He was a pupil of Cipriani & drew in Heads in Chalks with great neatness but with facility. He also drew Landscape in Indian Ink & water Colour cotemporary with P. Sandby. He & Mr S engrossed for several years greater share of imployment in that department of an Artists profession than the generality of their Brethren. He was born in England but his father Gaspard Grasse emigrated from his native Country (Geneva) to avoid the religious persecution of [sic].

This portraitback to top

Dated according to the evidence of the inscription. The donor plausibly suggested NPG 4196 may have been a self-portrait, [1] although the inscription does not encourage the idea.

Footnotesback to top

1) Letter of 3 July 1947 (NPG archive). The Gresse sale, Christies, 7-12 April 1794, included some heads by Gresse: ‘A head in black and red chalk’ and ‘4 heads’ (day 3, lots 51, 73), and ‘A head in crayons’ (day 4, lot 46).

Provenanceback to top

Presented by E. Daly Lewis 1947.


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.