James Lonsdale

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed by a later hand in ink on the wooden backing (now in registered packet 1854): James Lonsdale/Painter/painted by/himself about/A.D. 1810.

This portraitback to top

This is apparently the only certainly recorded miniature by Lonsdale who is normally regarded as a straight portrait painter exhibiting regularly at the RA 1802-38 and SBA from 1824; some of his SBA exhibits are listed by Jane Johnson as 'drawing, watercolour or miniature'. It shows the artist aged about 35 and was clearly used as a basis for a later self-portrait, with sparse hair and more mature face, now in the Lancaster Museum and Art Gallery, published as a mezzotint by Charles Turner 1830 but probably painted considerably earlier. Another portrait, by his son R. T. Lonsdale, exhibited RA 1838 (29) and offered to the NPG in 1931, shows him almost bald, with dark neckcloth and monocle (photograph in NPG).

Physical descriptionback to top

Head to right aged about 35, black coat, white neckcloth, dark brown hair, brown eyes, pale complexion, crimson background lower right.

Provenanceback to top

Family possession and bequeathed by Horatio Walter Lonsdale (?grandson) in 1920.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, 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.

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