Thomas Hearne

Thomas Hearne, by Henry Monro, 1812 -NPG 1653 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Thomas Hearne

by Henry Monro
1812
28 in. x 22 1/2 in. (712 mm x 572 mm)
NPG 1653

This portraitback to top

NPG 1653 may reasonably be identified as the drawing of Hearne exhibited by Monro at the RA in 1812. Hearne was a close friend of Thomas Monro, the artist’s father, [1] and the portrait descended through the Monro family. In 1912 W. E. Monro wrote that there was ‘some doubt as to whether it was drawn by my great grandfather [i.e. Thomas Monro - the writer seems to have been unaware of Henry Monro] about the year 1800 or by Hearne himself’, [2] but Hearne is not known for pastel portraits, while in his very short career Henry Monro exhibited two at the RA in 1808 and 1811.
By 1812 Hearne was not in good spirits. Farington, who regularly reported on his welfare, had noted in 1806 that he appeared ‘undressed and squalid, which in one advancing in years should not be’, and by 1811 he had a ‘general disinclination to exertion. He said that which He best liked to do was to remain at home & finish up His old drawings’.[3] Perhaps that is what Monro shows him doing, as he holds a paint jar in his hand.

Footnotesback to top

1) They were buried side by side at Bushey.
2) Letter of 15 April 1912 (NPG archive).
3) Joseph Farington, Diary, 7 November 1806 and 1 July 1811.

Physical descriptionback to top

Pale blue eyes, white hair, wearing a dark grey coat, a small green paint jar in his left hand.

Provenanceback to top

F. T. Monro (d. 1912); W. E. Monro,1 from whom purchased 1912.

1 Who wrote that the portrait had been ‘in my family for a number of years’ (W. E. Monro, 5 April 1912; NPG archive).

Exhibitionsback to top

RA 1812 (766).


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.

View all known portraits for Thomas Hearne