Richard Bentley

Richard Bentley, by John Giles Eccardt, 1753 -NPG 5885 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Richard Bentley

by John Giles Eccardt
1753
16 5/8 in. x 13 1/2 in. (422 mm x 343 mm)
NPG 5885

This portraitback to top

One of six Eccardt portraits commissioned by Horace Walpole for Strawberry Hill (see Orford, NPG 988). They hung together in the blue bed-chamber, in which the chimney-piece was designed by Bentley. [1] Walpole described NPG 5885 as ‘Mr Richard Bentley; from Vandyck. He holds in one hand his own design of the figure of Melancholy drawn by him for the edition of Mr Gray’s Odes’. [2] Eccardt took his composition from Van Dyck’s portrait of Adam de Coster as engraved by Pieter de Jode the younger [3] and the alterations to the cloak described above modified Van Dyck’s design. Bentley’s illustrations for Gray’s Odes were prepared in 1751-52 and published in March 1753; his drawing of Melancholy, the tail piece for the Hymn to Adversity and much admired by Gray, [4] is now in the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington.
A small watercolour copy by G. P. Harding (omitting the shield of arms), was sold Bonham’s, 30 June 1999, lot 126. [5]

Footnotesback to top

1) Engraved T. Morris for Walpole’s Description of Strawberry Hill, 1784, f.p.28.
2) Ibid., p 29.
3) New Hollstein Van Dyck, II, 2002, no.56.
4) Wal.Corr., IX, p 143.
5) From the collection of Mrs Richard Bentley (widow of the publisher Richard Bentley, 1794-1871); almost certainly used by Greatbach for his 1857 engraving.

Physical descriptionback to top

Blue eyes, fair hair; wearing Van Dyck dress, a silver blue tunic beneath a buttoned grey cloak; the drawing in his left hand is a design for Melancholy drawn for the illustrated edition of Gray’s Odes; bottom right is the Bentley shield of arms (or, three bends sable).

Provenanceback to top

Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford; Strawberry Hill sale, 19th day, 22 May 1842, lot 31, bought Money; 9th Earl of Waldegrave sale, Christie’s, 10 February 1900, lot 35, bought Renton; ‘the Joel family until c.1950’;1 sold Sotheby’s, 9 July 1986, lot 42, bought Leggatt for the NPG.

1 As cited in the 1986 sale cat.

Reproductionsback to top

J. Heath 1798 (oval); W. Greatbach 1857 (both reversed and omitting his right hand and the shield of arms).1

1 Both illus.: Wal Corr., XXXV, f.p.643 (Heath); Walpole and Strawberry Hill, Orleans House, Twickenham, 1980, p 55 (Greatbach).


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.