Thomas Hudson

Presumably commissioned by Charles Jennens (1700–1773), Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire;

Thence by descent to to his sister Elizabeth Hanmer (1705–1777), Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire;

Thence by descent to her daughter Esther Hanmer Curzon (1738–1764), Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire;

Thence by descent to her son Penn Asheton Curzon (1757–1797), Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire;

Thence by descent to his son Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe, 1st Earl Howe (1796–1870), Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire;

Thence by descent within the family, Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire (according to a label on the reverse);

By whom sold, on the premises, Gopsall Hall, Messrs. Trollope, 21 October 1918, lot 1191 (as Godfrey Kneller, Portrait of a gentleman);

Private collection, UK, by 1935;

Whence sold, Cambridge, Cheffins, 22 June 2022, lot 329 (as Circle of Mason Chamberlin);

Where acquired by the present owner.

ENGRAVED

James MacArdell (1729–1765), 1760

Long known only from an engraving, this portrait has recently been identified as a portrait of the Jacobite academic William King (1685–1763) by the prominent Georgian painter Thomas Hudson (1701–1779) painted in circa 1760 and presumably commissioned by Charles Jennens (1700–1773) of Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire.

William King, principal of St Mary Hall, Oxford, was a distinguished scholar, writer, and Jacobite sympathizer. Born in Stepney to an Anglican clergyman, King was educated at Salisbury and Balliol College, Oxford, where he later earned his Doctor of Civil Law degree. Though called to the bar in 1712, he chose a life of letters and politics, serving as secretary to the Jacobite dukes of Ormond and Arran. A loyal Tory and staunch supporter of the Stuarts, he was appointed principal of St Mary Hall in 1719, a post he held for forty-four years. A prolific Latin poet and orator, King published several political satires attacking Whig corruption and championing Tory ideals. His celebrated orations, especially at the dedication of the Radcliffe Library in 1749, cemented his reputation as one of Europe’s greatest Latin speakers and thinly veiled calls for Stuart restoration. Though his Jacobite fervor waned after 1750, he remained a central figure in Oxford’s intellectual life, reconciling with the Hanoverian regime in 1761. King died in Bath in 1763 and was buried at Ealing, remembered as the longest-serving Oxford head and a brilliant, if controversial, defender of learning, liberty, and loyalty to his ideals.

This portrait was most likely commissioned directly from Thomas Hudson by one of his patrons, Charles Jennens,¹ best remembered today as passionate admirer and supporter of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), for whom he provided the librettos for several of Handel’s greatest oratorios—including Saul, Belshazzar, and most famously Messiah.² Though no firm evidence survives, as a leading nonjuror himself, it is plausible that Jennens knew William King personally and admired him as an outspoken Jacobite, which would explain the commission of his portrait.

As indicated by an old handwritten label on the back of the stretcher, this picture hung at Gopsall Hall for over 150 years until sold at auction by Jennens’s descendants, the Earls of Howe, in 1918, where it was miscatalogued as a ‘Portrait of a Gentleman’ by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723). 

¹ Thomas Hudson painted Charles Jennens's portrait on at least two occasions: https://www.artfund.org/our-purpose/art-funded-by-you/portrait-of-charles-jennens; https://photoarchive.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/objects/484312/charles-jennens-of-gopsal-and-pooley-1700--1773?ctx=f124fc479c05ad35ca42421a98cc8d1f87c36f8c&idx=1

² Charles Jennens famously commissioned Hudson to paint Handel's portrait in 1756, today in the National Portrait Gallery, London: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02876