Stanhope Alexander Forbes

Inscriptionback to top

Signed top left in monogram: ‘EAF’.
On back, labels:
(a) handwritten label inscr.: ‘Portrait of Stanhope Forbes c.1896 / by Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes / oil on panel 14" x 10" / signed with monogram. / Provenance: the artist’s studio collection. / Literature: The Studio vol.23 1901, p.81 illustrated / exhibited R. Academy 1897 no.163’.
(b) printed label: ‘Marchman Collection’.

This portraitback to top

Sitter and artist met in Newlyn in 1886 [1] and married in August 1889. From 1893 to 1904 they lived at Trewarveneth Farm, above Newlyn, where this intimate portrait – possibly painted by lamplight – may have been executed during the 1890s; other possible locations include Ascain in the French Pyrenees, where the Forbes family spent some months in 1898. In the 1980s, it was conjecturally dated to 1896 (see label [a]); more recently it has been ascribed to 1889, [2] around the time of the Forbes’s marriage. Here, however, the sitter – always lean – appears older than in his self-portrait of that year (see ‘All known portraits, Self-portraits, 1889’) and aged at least 40, suggesting a date not long before the portrait was first illustrated, in The Studio magazine in 1901. [3]

Born in Canada, Elizabeth Armstrong Forbes was raised in London and studied in New York and Munich before visiting the artists’ colony in Pont-Aven, Brittany and then that in Newlyn. She became an accomplished painter and etcher, with a successful exhibition record and wide repertoire and, but for the conventions of the time, her talent would have eclipsed that of her husband. Together they ran the Newlyn art school. [4]

This small work, at first sight hardly more than an oil sketch, vividly captures the sitter’s relaxed, unselfconscious aspect, absorbed in reading an astonishingly thick volume, held in sinewy artist’s hands. A dusty pink flower in his buttonhole relieves the sober grey-brown hues elsewhere.

Five other portraits of Stanhope by Elizabeth are known (see ‘All known portraits’), three being works on paper and two oils of comparable size to NPG 6587, including one showing him playing the cello, with an aspect similar to that of the present work. [5] All appear to have been informally executed and remained in family possession, although only one, an untraced watercolour listed as ‘SAF in Cranford’ and measuring 550 x 150mm, was included in the lists of works by Elizabeth drawn up after her death, and the 1922 inventory of works in Stanhope’s home. [6]

In 1889, Stanhope produced bust-length profile portraits of Elizabeth and himself,[7] with which NPG 6587 may also be compared.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) Birch 1906, p.65.
2) Hardie 1995, p.28, and in communication. The ‘1896’ conjecture was based on a mistaken belief that this was the work exhibited by the artist at the RA 1897 (163), which was in fact a portrait of her son Alec Forbes.
3) Studio, vol.23, July 1901, p.81.
4) See Cook & Hardie 2000 for an account of her career.
5) Cook & Hardie 2000, no.4.241; the other portraits are listed as nos 4.239, 4.240, 4.242 and 4.244. No.4.238, referenced as reproduced in the Studio 1901, is in fact the present work, indexed by Cook & Hardie 2000 as no.4.243, ‘Portrait of Stanhope Reading’.
6) Tate Archive, 9015.5.7 and 9015.6.3.
7) Newlyn AG; see ‘All known portraits, Self-portraits, 1889’.

Physical descriptionback to top

Half-length, profile to left, reading a book, with healthy complexion, brown hair with quiff, grey waistcoat and jacket with pink buttonhole.

Provenanceback to top

With sitter to 1947; Forbes studio sale 1981 no.41 (not for sale); Pyms Gallery London 1981; J. Marchman until 2000; David Messum, from whom purchased 2001.

Exhibitionsback to top

Santa Fe Art Museum, 1987 (ex-cat., as ‘Portrait of Stanhope Reading’ on loan from Marchman Collection).

Reproductionsback to top

The Studio, 1901, p.81.

Hardie 1995, p.28.

View all known portraits for Stanhope Alexander Forbes