Robert Vernon

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed and dated on reverse: Painted by G Jones RA./Portrait and Dog by H. Collen 1848.

This portraitback to top

George Jones, painter of battle-scenes and Keeper of the Royal Academy, was Vernon's chief adviser in forming his collection of pictures. Henry Collen was mainly a miniaturist and probably used Mote's engraving. The portrait was presumably painted for the Vernon family and is an improved variant of H. W. Pickersgill's oil of 1846 in the Tate Gallery (416, three-quarter-length only without accessories).

Physical descriptionback to top

Whole-length in a palatial room holding a King Charles spaniel; brown dressing-gown with velvet collar, white shirt, neckcloth and bow-tie, black trousers and slippers; black hair, brown eyes, pink complexion. He sits in a leather armchair beside a sumptuous Regency desk on which are books, a 17th century silver auricular chalice converted to an inkstand, a Greek amphora, and on a sofa behind is one of Turner's Venetian views, now Tate Gallery 370; green curtain and architectural background.

Provenanceback to top

Vernon family possession and bequeathed to a connection by marriage, Cyril Daniels; Christie's 18 November 1966 (16) bought Leggatt for the NPG.

Reproductionsback to top

(Of the Tate Gallery version)
Stipple engraving by W. H. Mote published in The Art Journal, 1849, half-length only in an oval.


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.

View all known portraits for George Jones

View all known portraits for Robert Vernon