John Gwynn
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- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
John Gwynn
by Unknown artist
oil on canvas, circa 1770
36 in. x 29 1/4 in. (914 mm x 743 mm)
Purchased, 1969
Primary Collection
NPG 4680
Linked publicationsback to top
- Ingamells, John, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p. 223
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 269
Events of 1770back to top
Current affairs
Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton resigns as Prime Minister and is succeeded by Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford.Art and science
Oliver Goldsmith publishes his poem The Deserted Village.Philosopher and politician Edmund Burke publishes Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents discussing the limits of the King's authority.
17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, later hailed as a significant poet, commits suicide in a London garret.
Thomas Gainsborough paints his portrait of Jonathan Buttall, which later becomes known as The Blue Boy.
International
'Townshend duties' on imports into the colonies are repealed, except for the duty on tea. However, this concession is soon followed by the Boston Massacre, in which British troops fire into an unruly crowd in Boston, killing five.Captain Cook reaches the eastern coast of Australia, at a place which he names Botany Bay. He discovers the Great Barrier Reef when HMS Endeavour runs onto it. Cook claims New South Wales for the British.
Comments back to top
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Cliff Thornton
05 September 2015, 09:08
I believe that this may be the lost portrait of "Mr Gwyn the Architect" painted by Charles Grignon the younger (1753-1804). Grignon worked with kit-cat sized canvases, as in this portrait. As Grignon moved to Rome in 1781, this portrait was probably painted before that date. It may have been one of the portraits which Grignon exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibitions in the 1770s, but the sitters were not identified in the catalogues.
To be more certain of this attribution to Grignon, this painting should be compared with known works by the artist, e.g. Captain George Farmer NPG 2149, and Admiral Sir Richard Pearson at the National Maritime Museum.