South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 1545
Current title: "George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron (1719-92)"
Location: The Royal Collection
This full-length portrait shows Rodney wearing his admiral's dress uniform, one that was newly introduced in 1787, with the ribbon and star of the Order of the Bath. The Battle of the Saints, Rodney's resounding victory against the French and Spanish in April of 1782, appears in the background.
A habitual gambler, Rodney was troubled by debt for much of his career. In the wake of the Battle of the Saints, which kept Jamaica from falling to foreign powers, he was rewarded with an English barony, a pension of ₤2000 per year, and much public praise—even from one-time critics such as Fox and Edmund Burke.
This full-length portrait, painted for the Prince Regent, hangs in a position of honor next to the Queen at the same time that it is neatly juxtaposed with Rodney's earlier portrait as a much younger man (see notes at No. 100). Viewed side-by-side in this corner of the South Room, Rodney ages at a glance, from 40 to 70.
Memoirist Nathaniel Wraxall described Rodney as unusually genteel for a sailor: "His person was more elegant than seemed to become his rough profession" (quoted in Mannings). Wraxall's implied prejudices resemble those recounted in Persuasion, where the vain Sir Walter Elliot boasts that he once mistook a 40-year-old admiral for an old man of sixty: "I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do; but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all: they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen." While Reynolds' nearby portrait of the handsome 40-year-old Rodney dispelled the myths about rough sailors, this naturalistic image of "the 70-year-old Rodney with sunken eye, craggy nose, and no teeth" refuses to sugarcoat the ravages of old age and a seafaring life (Mannings).
Other naval officers in the 1813 show include No. 42, No. 48, No. 111, and No. 134.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Rodney, George Bridges, first Baron Rodney (bap. 1718, d. 1792)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
Brian Southam, Jane Austen and the Navy (Hambledon and London, 2000).
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 145
Current title: "Lady Beaumont (d. 1829)"
Location: The Frick, Pittsburgh
Margaret Willes (1756-1829) was the daughter of John Willes of Astrop. She married Sir George Beaumont, an art patron and landscape painter, in 1778. Their marriage revolved around a shared passion for art and collecting, starting with a grand tour in 1782 that the couple, unconventionally, made together.
Throughout their marriage, Margaret softened her husband's conservative classicism with a modern touch. She was an active participant in growing the collection of art shown in their house in Grosvenor Square, using ₤1500 from a legacy in 1803, for example, to buy Rubens' Chateau de Steen for her husband as a gift. In later life she was describes as "a good creature—sensible, though oddish" (Mannings).
Mannings complains that this picture was "overcleaned" sometime after 1941, a process that removed Reynolds' refinements to the hair and bonnet.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Beaumont, Sir George Howland, seventh baronet (1753-1827), art patron and landscape painter," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 144
Current title: "Sir George Howland Beaumont, 7th Baronet (1753-1827)"
Location: The Frick, Pittsburgh
George was the only surviving son of Sir George Beaumont, sixth Baronet, and Rachel Howland. He spent his life as an amateur painter and patron of the arts, although his highly selective nature prompted several contemporary artists to resent his influence in fashionable circles.
Beaumont and his wife made repeated sketching tours in the Lake District and north Wales, befriending a number of the lake poets. For example, the Beaumonts introduced Coleridge and Wordsworth into London society in 1804 and 1806.
Beaumont's openness to new Romantic trends in poetry was not matched by his choices in art. In 1802 he was a member of the committee charged with the selection of monuments for St Paul's Cathedral, and in 1806 became a founding member of the British Institution. These positions gave him considerable influence as an arbiter of taste, a power he exercised with a stubborn conservatism.
Mannings gives a sense of the painting's colors when he describes Beaumont in a "black coat" and "white cravat" before a "red curtain."
Further Reading:
Entry for "Beaumont, Sir George Howland, seventh baronet (1753-1827), art patron and landscape painter," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 718
Current title: "Queen Charlotte (1744-1818)"
Location: Royal Academy of Arts, London
Queen Charlotte was born the second daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Elizabeth Albetina of Saxe-Hildburghausen. In 1761, she married George III, whose interests in science, art, theater, and music she shared. They had fifteen children together, and Queen Charlotte was heavily involved in their upbringing.
The King's mental illness, and the threat to the monarchy that his disease represented, became the Queen's major preoccupation. She was also much troubled by the misbehavior of her sons, whose philandering and expenditures she admonished. Although she was close to her five unmarried daughters, "her temper towards them could be very uneven." After the Regency Act of 1811, Charlotte was effectively "a widow with a living but blind, mentally distressed husband, a poignant end to what had been a very affectionate, companionate marriage." (ODNB)
She was a generous patron of the arts, whose charity deftly helped shift the monarchy away from political controversy. The 1811 Regency Act gave Queen Charlotte, aided by council, dominion over the ailing king's household. Her powers were occasionally in tension with the inclinations of the Prince Regent, whom she spent the remainder of her life assisting.
The Queen's portrait hangs opposite that of her husband, allowing the royal couple to gaze at each other, as it were, from across the three-room gallery. Gallantly accompanying the Queen on this gallery wall are two elderly naval heroes—one on each side.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Charlotte [Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz] (1744-1818), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn. 2009).
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 2189
Current title: "View from Sir Joshua Reynolds's House, Richmond Hill"
Location: Tate Gallery, London
According to this 1788 engraving by William Birch, the view for this piece was taken from Reynolds' county villa on Richmond Hill. The painting is erroneously dated 1788 in the 1813 Catalogue, for it was shown in 1784 at the Society for Promoting Painting and Design in Liverpool.
Critics remain divided on whether Reynolds' rare forays into landscape painting were successful. This is the only landscape shown in the 1813 exhibit. Mannings suggests this piece may have been influenced by Rubens' Landscape by Moonlight, a painting Reynolds owned by 1778.
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 1049
Current title: "Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount (1725-86)"
Location: The Royal Collection
Augustus Keppel, shown here at the age of 60, is dressed in his admiral's uniform, holding in his right hand a paper that presumably contains details about naval operations. Keppel's family was deeply involved in the Whig party, including his second cousin Charles James Fox, and these connections aided his naval and political careers. In 1749, as commodore of the Centurion, Keppel sailed the Mediterranean with the young Joshua Reynolds, who was grateful to receive such patronage.
Through his service in the Battle of Ushant and other naval missions abroad, Keppel established himself as one of the most popular and best-regarded naval captains. He then turned his attention to politics and was duly raised to the peerage as Viscount Keppel and Baron Elden in 1782.
In spite of the date of 1759 listed in the Catalogue, this was painted in 1785. The error inadvertently invokes the famous 1750s Reynolds portrait of a much-younger, vibrant Keppel, which this composition, with its same rocky setting by the sea, indeed reprises. When this picture was made, Lord Keppel's health was failing (he died childless the following year and his title died with him). Keppel's illness is reflected in the puffy physique and stiff pose. Although an earlier portrait of the young Keppel is not literally present in the 1813 gallery—unlike the nearby portraits of the young and the old Lord Rodney (see No. 100 and No. 106)—this image similarly emphasizes the aging of a naval hero.
A whole-length portrait of his sister, Elizabeth Keppel, hangs in the North Room (No. 22). Her husband, Francis Russell, hangs at No. 128.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Keppel, Augustus, Viscount Keppel (1725-1786), naval officer and politician," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn. 2010).
Brian Southam, Jane Austen and the Navy (Hambledon and London, 2000).
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 964
Current title: "Sir Abraham Hume, 2nd Baronet (1749-1838)"
Location: Belton House, The National Trust
Son of Sir Abraham Hume, first Baronet, and Hannah Frederick, Hume was a collector of art and precious stones. He was a close friend of Reynolds, who left him "the choice of my Claude Lorrains" in his will (Mannings). Hume's focus was primarily on Italian works from the Venetian, Florentine, and Roman schools, but he also owned pieces of Dutch and Flemish art. Like George Beaumont (nearby at No. 108), Hume was a founding member of the British Institution. He would eventually publish a Descriptive Catalogue of his collection of paintings in 1824.
His wife Amelia (1745-1809) hangs beside him (No. 113).
Further Reading:
Entry for "Hume, Sir Abraham, second baronet (1749-1838), collector of art and precious stones," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—South End.
Mannings # 965
Current title: "Lady Amelia Hume (1745-1809)"
Location: Belton House, The National Trust
Daughter of John Egerton, Bishop of Durham, and Anna-Sophia Grey, Amelia married Sir Abraham Hume in 1771 (No. 112). Her title, "Lady Amelia Hume," was especially conferred by George III in 1808.
Lady Amelia Hume is depicted with powdered hair and a small dog in her lap. Mannings mentions how, although lapdogs were popular during this time, they were usually not included in portraits due to their "slightly indelicate associations" (see notes at No. 103).
Further Reading:
Entry for her husband, "Hume, Sir Abraham, second baronet (1749-1838), collector of art and precious stones," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).