Anna Maria Jenkins; Thomas Jenkins

Inscriptionback to top

Signed, bottom centre, in black: Angelica Kauffman./Pinx: Roma,/1790.

This portraitback to top

Noted by the artist in her memorandum of paintings [1] as:

'Roma 1790. Per il Sigr. Tomaso Jenkins Inglese Un quadro alto palmi 6 - largo palmi 4.6. - Il Ritratto del sudetto e quello della sua nipote Anna Maria con il ritratto pure d’un grosso cane favorito - La figura intiera di circa 3. palmi e mezzo - in sito campestre con vedutta in lontano del Colosseo - il detto quadro fu dipinto per amicizia e fù regalatta la pitricce d’una bellma. testa antica di marmo all naturalle, in Bassorilievo su fondo oscuro, in guisa di cameo - rapresenta uno de nipoti d’Augusto, ma di eccellente maestro e perfetate. conservatta - e di più due belle gemme cioé un cameo antico ed un’ametista con bellmo. intaglio dell B. Vergine Maria, gema ovalle di onzie due legata in oro d’apendersi in guisa di gioielo al seno.'
In 1782 Kauffmann had bought a carriage from Jenkins, who was acting as her banker at least from 1785 to 1795. [2]
Anna Maria Jenkins lived with her uncle in Rome 1788-94, until her marriage to Giovanni Martinez, Jenkins’s neighbour; she was described at the time as ‘a tall slender damsel out of powder & tho’ very English not the style of the fashionable World in England’. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) RA Library, London. Published by C. Knight, La ‘Memoria delle piture’ di Angelica Kauffman, Lucca, 1998, pp 52-53 ['Rome 1790. For Mr Thomas Jenkins, Englishman. A picture 6 palmi high and 4.6 palmi wide, a portrait of the above and of his niece Anna Maria, with a large pet dog. Full length figures about 3½ palmi in a landscape setting with a distant view of the Colosseum. This picture painted out of friendship, the artist being given a beautiful ancient life size marble head, a bas relief set on a dark background like a cameo, of one of the nephews of Augustus, by an excellent artist and wonderfully preserved, and two lovely jewels, an antique cameo and an amethyst on which is engraved the image of the Blessed Virgin, an oval of 2 onzie set in gold, to be worn as a pendant round the neck'].
2) J. Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, 1997, p 555.
3) Elizabeth Gibbes MS journal, Rome, 1789-90; see J. Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, 1997, p 553.

Referenceback to top

Williamson & Manners 1924
G. C. Williamson & Lady Victoria Manners, John Zoffany, R.A., his life and works, pp 85, 158.

Physical descriptionback to top

Seated in a landscape outside Rome with a distant view of the Colosseum, Jenkins has blue-grey eyes, fair reddish hair; he wears a black coat and hat, a yellow waistcoat and breeches, with white stockings and black shoes. His niece, Anna Maria, stands by him; she has brown eyes, brown hair, and wears a white hat, a white dress with a pink waist band and white slippers; she holds a bunch of white convolvulus.

Provenanceback to top

R. W. M. Walker; Christie’s, 20 July 1945, lot 92 (as Mr and Mrs Jenkins); Frost & Reed; Phillips, 10 July 1972, lot 44; J. A. Lewin; Christie’s, 20 June 1975, lot 113, bought Leggatt for the NPG.

Exhibitionsback to top

British Artists in Rome, Kenwood, 1974 (11) lent J. A. Lewin; The Arrogant Connoisseur, Manchester, 1982 (180); Travels in Italy, Manchester, 1988 (14); Kauffman, Brighton, York, 1993 (15); Angelika Kauffman Retrospektive, Dusseldorf, Munich, Chur, 1998 (167).


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 Jenkins

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