Beschreibung:

NATHANIEL DANCE (BRITISH 1735-1811)
POWLETT WRIGHTE (THE YOUNGER), STANDING BEFORE ENGLEFIELD HOUSE, BERKSHIRE
Oil on canvas
71.1 x 91.4cm (27 x 35 in.)
Provenance:
Presumably commissioned by the sitter or the sitter's family
George J. Kidston (1873-1954) of Hazelbury Manor, Box, Wiltshire
Frost & Reed, London
Private Collection U.S.A.
The present lot is a charming example in the mid-eighteenth-century tradition of the English country house conversation piece, having been identified from another almost identical version of the work, currently in a private collection, which is inscribed to the frame with details of the sitter, location and artist. The two pictures are contemporary with each other, and from the style of painting the hand is clearly the same. The only variants are some very slight differences in some of the trees and the painting offered here includes a dog in the foreground, which is omitted from the other version.
Powlett Wrighte Junior (1739-1779) was the son of Powlett and Mary Wrighte and the heir to Englefield House and its estate. His father died in 1741, when he was just two years old and the house and estates were left in trust for him until he turned twenty-one. Both paintings show Englefield as it was in the mid-18th century, most likely around 1760, the year Wrighte turned twenty-one and came into full ownership of the house.
This would have been a thoroughly plausible reason to commission a painting of himself, standing proudly in front of his country house of which he was now master. Given that his mother, now the chatelaine of several large houses through her second marriage in 1745, would have spent much of her time away from Englefield, it is also entirely plausible that she would have wanted a second version of the picture to hang in one of her other houses to remind her of the house where she lived before and to remind her of her eldest son, who was now the master there.
Upon his death in 1779 and, being childless, Wrighte left the Englefield estate to his uncle, Nathaniel Wrighte in accordance with his father's will. Nathaniel Wrighte let the house and estate to Lady Clive, the widow of the famous 'Clive of India' and she lived there for some years in the 1780s.
Since that time that house has been architecturally altered more than once - most significantly during the early 19th century when it was given some impressive 'Gothic' additions. The elevation shown in this picture, however, is largely still extant today and the positioning of the church to the viewer's right is similarly unchanged. The descendants of Powlett Wrighte are still the owners of Englefield House today.
For Nathaniel Dance, 1760 was also a pivotal year. Initially it is hard to reconcile this picture stylistically with most of the known works by Dance which are much more informed in their handling of his sitters, giving them a certain charisma and depth which is lacking here. However, if we keep the date of 1760 in mind, we note that this predates his trip to Italy, and more specifically Rome, where he met and was influenced by the grand-manner portrait painter Pompeo Batoni Prior to this trip abroad, the influences of Dance's tutor Francis Hayman are more noticeable. Similar examples of Dance's work in this early style include The Dashwood Family at Wycombe Park (Witt 147628), and Colonel Thornton at Falconer's Hall (Witt 147629).