Thomas Hull

This portraitback to top

The laurel held above Shenstone’s bust [1] and Hull’s evident intention to compose an Elegy, suggests that NPG 4625 was painted soon after the poet’s death in 1763. [2] The wig and coat with deep close cuffs also suggest a date within the 1760s. NPG 4625, an unsophisticated portrait with an oversized head, defies attribution; [3] it may be compared with a portrait of Thomas Worlidge (d. 1766), sold Christie’s, 11 May 1951, lot 126, [4] and the little-known Daniel Bond (1725-1803), a painter within the Shenstone circle, [5] should not be discounted.

Footnotesback to top

1) It may be compared with the engraved front. to Shenstone’s Works, I, 1764; see J. Kerslake National Portrait Gallery, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, II, pl.726. Shenstone had been considering a bust of himself in 1754 when he encountered a sculptor from Stratford making busts at 2 gn. each (M. Williams ed., Letters of William Shenstone, 1939, pp 409-10).
2) R. J. B. Walker, The eighteenth and early nineteenth century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 1992, under no.359, suggested a date of c.1765.
3) Having previously been sold, with some optimism, as Barry, Zoffany and Wright.
4) Attributed, unconvincingly, to Tilly Kettle; it is more like Edward Penny (as Malcolm Rogers observed), without meriting such an attribution.
5) Who painted an untraced portrait of Shenstone which belonged to Hull (M. Williams ed., Letters of William Shenstone, 1939, p 379n2), presumably the portrait in Hull’s possession which was engraved anon. and published by Bagster in 1777. A portrait of Juliana Ludford by Bond was sold Christie’s, 1 December 2000, lot 29, but he is otherwise known as a painter of classicising landscapes.

Physical descriptionback to top

Blue eyes, powdered toupée wig, wearing deep-red coat with dark fur trim, a bright red waistcoat with gold trim, a quill in his right hand, his left holding a sprig of laurel above a bust of William Shenstone which stands before a green curtain; on the paper the heading Elegy.

Provenanceback to top

Guy Bolton (b. 1884); Christie’s, 8 June 1951, lot 53 (as by Zoffany and with a bust of Garrick); Capt. L. F. Plugge, London, from whom stolen; Phillips, 30 September 1968, lot 97 (as by J. Wright), bought Leggatt for the NPG; returned in November 1968 to Capt. Plugge; sold Sotheby’s, 20 April 1977, lot 277 (as by Barry), bought Leggatt for the NPG.


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 Hull