Folliott Herbert Walker Cornewall

This portraitback to top

A receipt from William Owen, dated 23 June 1813 Receiv’d of Porteus Esq ninety four pounds ten shillings for amount of the Bishop of Worcester was presented with the portrait. [1] It helps to confirm an attribution for the unique portrait type of Cornewall, but it is more difficult to interpret the sum of ninety guineas (which clearly covers more than one painting). NPG 5324, which descended through the Bishop’s family, should perhaps be accounted the original, and there were similar panels at Buxted in 1905 from the collection of Lord Liverpool (Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl, had been a particular friend of the Bishop), [2] and another at Powis Castle in 1957, [3] the home of the Bishop’s cousin, the 1st Earl of Powis.
There is a copy at Hartlebury Castle, the Bishop’s last official residence, and an indifferently extended half-length version in the Deanery at Canterbury; [4] a pastel copy by Miss Lancaster Lucas was formerly at Kirkham Abbey, [5] and an unidentified version was exhibited by A. C. Hooper in 1882. [6]

Footnotesback to top

1) From Cornewall’s account book, now NPG archive; Porteus was, presumably, the Bishop’s agent.
2) Lord Hawkesbury, 'Catalogue of Portraits, Miniatures, &c., at Kirkham Abbey and 2 Carlton House Terrace, in the Possession of Lord Hawkesbury', Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, 1906, p 51; in 1903 wrongly called a portrait of Bishop Jenkinson of St David’s (author’s annotated copy of Lord Hawkesbury, 'Catalogue of Portraits at Compton Place (Devonshire) and Buxted Park (Hon H. B. Portman), Miniatures at Devonshire House (Devonshire)', Sussex Archaeological Society, Collections, XLVII, 1904, under Buxted no.13; NPG); Buxted had by then passed to Lord Portman (and by 1925 some of these portraits were with the 4th Viscount Portman in Bournemouth). The 1st Earl of Liverpool of the 2nd creation [Cecil George Savile, i.e. Lord Hawkesbury] was one of the principal buyers at the Delbury Hall sale in 1906 (letter from C. A. South, September 1980; NPG archive).
3) J. Steegman, Portraits in Welsh Houses, I, p 268, no.88.
4) Illus. J. Ingamells, The English Episcopal Portrait 1559-1835, 1981, fig.58. The above account differs from that given in Ingamells 1981 when, alas, a reference was misunderstood and the NPG portrait unknown.
5) In Lord Liverpool’s collection (Lord Hawkesbury, 'Catalogue of Portraits, Miniatures, &c., at Kirkham Abbey and 2 Carlton House Terrace, in the Possession of Lord Hawkesbury', Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, 1906, p 51).
6) Worcestershire Exhibition 1882 (History Section 151, cat., p 29); a written description in the NPG archives clearly indicates a version of NPG 5324.

Physical descriptionback to top

Blue eyes, grey powdered wig, wearing a Bishop’s rochet and chimere; brown background.

Provenanceback to top

Commissioned by the sitter and paid for in 1813; by descent in the Cornewall family at Delbury Hall¹ to Ada M. South, great-granddaughter of the sitter (d. 1958); brought to London 1905;² her children, Elsie M. S. South and Cecil Andrew South, by whom presented 1980.

¹ The panel is inscribed in ink verso: This Picture belongs to Delbury Hall and This picture belongs to Delbury hall/J H Cornewall/28th April 184[0]. For the Cornewall descent, see Liverpool & Reade, House of Cornewall, 1908, pp 137-41; NPG 5324 illus. p.VIII.
² Lord Hawkesbury, 'Catalogue of Portraits, Miniatures, &c., at Kirkham Abbey and 2 Carlton House Terrace, in the Possession of Lord Hawkesbury', Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, XIII, I, 1906, p 51. An author’s annotation in Lord Hawkesbury, 'Catalogue if the Pictures at Hardwick Hall', Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, XXV, 1903, p 21 (NPG), refers to the portrait at Delbury [NPG 5324] being ‘brought to London to be sold’.


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.