Beschreibung:

Corden (William, 1795-1867). A pair of portraits of Cornelius Birch Bagster (1815-1893) and his wife Susanna Maria née Aitken (1815-1873), 1860, a pair of oval head & shoulder portraits, the first of a ruddy-faced bearded gentleman half-profile to right, wearing a black coat, signed and dated in red to left margin, oval aperture 49 x 49 cm, stretcher 64.7 x 54.5 cm, the second of a plump rosy-cheeked lady with dark ringlets, half-profile to right, wearing a black dress with white lace collar and a black lace stole on her head, oval aperture 58.5 x 49 cm, stretcher 61 x 51 cm, each relined, matching gilt oval mounts and frames (each approximately 77.5 x 68 cm) Cornelius Birch Bagster was the son of publisher Samuel Bagster (1772-1851). He married Susanna Maria Aitken on 22nd November 1843 on Prince Edward Island (now a Canadian province). William Corden trained as a porcelain painter at the Derby Porcelain Works before turning to portrait painting, producing large-scale works in oils as well as miniature likenesses on porcelain, enamel and ivory. In 1829 Corden executed an oil portrait of Mr Batchelor, one of King George IV's pages, as well as a portrait of Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle for the King, and in the 1830s the artist moved to Windsor. In 1838 he painted a watercolour of Queen Victoria on the East Terrace of Windsor Castle, and the Queen subsequently employed Corden to produce oil copies of many portraits in the Royal Collection. In 1844 he was commissioned to paint '7 pictures of the Duchesses, Princes and Princesses of Saxe-Coburg'; for this undertaking he travelled to Coburg with his son, William Corden the Younger (1819-1900), and was paid the then princely sum of £112 5s.