Samuel Cooper

Probably Mrs Samuel Cooper (1623-1693), the artist’s wife,

probably Mrs Richard Gibson, née Anne Shepherd (d. 1707), the artist's wife,

probably Susannah-Penelope Rosse (d. 1700), the artist's daughter,

probably Michael Rosse (d. circa 1735), her husband,

probably his sale, London, Cecil Street, April-May 1723, unknown lot number,

possibly (according to family tradition) Christopher Tower of Huntsmoor Park, Buckinghamshire (1657-1728),

possibly Christopher Tower (1692-1771),

possibly Christopher Tower (1747-1810),

possibly the Rev. William Tower of Weald Hall, Essex (1789-1847),

Mrs William Henry Harford, née Ellen Tower (1832-1907),

Hugh Wyndham Luttrell Harford (1862-1920),

Arthur Hugh Harford (1905-1985),

by descent to the present owner

We are very grateful to Neil Jeffares for his help in clarifying the early provenance of this collection. Please see his article ‘William Towers (-1678) art dealer and collector’

Neil Jeffares | Fairness, candour & curiosity – from finance to art history (wordpress.com)

Intimate portraits from 17^th century London

Property of the Harford family

We are delighted to present for sale, for perhaps the first time in three hundred years, a group of remarkable portrait drawings by some of the most celebrated and interesting English artists working in and around London in the seventeenth century.

The collection contains four out of the seven known surviving works on paper by the great Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), eight exceptionally rare drawings by Cooper’s friend and fellow miniaturist, Richard Gibson (1615-1690), and a single work by Gibson’s talented daughter, Susannah-Penelope Rosse (1652-1700). The portraits are intimate in scale and highly personal, depicting as they do, members of these artists’ own families as well as people from their immediate social circle.  

The drawings have clearly been together from a very early date and most probably passed through the Cooper, Gibson and Rosse families, before being sold by Michael Rosse, husband of Susannah-Penelope Rosse, in 1723. 

The collection first came to the attention of scholars in the late 1950s. At that time, the drawings were kept in a portfolio and the then owner, A.H. Harford, recounted to Graham Reynolds (Keeper of Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum and eminent expert on portrait miniatures) and Sir Oliver Millar (expert in seventeenth century painting and later Director of the Royal Collection) that he had inherited the collection from his grandmother, Mrs William Henry Harford, née Ellen Tower (1832-1907). He also said that family tradition dictated that they had come down to Ellen Tower from her forebear Christopher Tower of Huntsmoor Park (1657-1728). However, Ellen Tower was also descended from the Harveys of Rolls Park and the Walkers of Wimbledon Heath – two other families who can trace their lineage back to at least the seventeenth century and who also formed significant art collections during that period.

Drawings by major seventeenth century English artists are extremely scarce and the rediscovery of this collection caused great excitement. Since then, a number of the works from the group have been included in major exhibitions at The Royal Academy of Arts (1960-1), Tate Britain (1972), the National Portrait Gallery (1974) and, most recently, the British Museum and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (1987). Sotheby’s is extremely honoured to have been chosen to handle their sale.  

Samuel Cooper

When Cosimo de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany visited London in 1669, he was assured that ‘no person of quality visits that city’ without attempting to secure a sitting with Samuel Cooper.¹ This was the reputation that Cooper enjoyed throughout his brilliant career and today he has earned the reputation as the greatest English-born painter of his age.

Cooper was born in Blackfriars, probably in 1609, the eldest of two children of Richard Cooper and his wife, Barbara Hoskins. After the premature deaths of his parents, circa 1611, he and his brother, Alexander, were taken in by his mother’s brother, the portrait miniatures painter, John Hoskins the elder (1589-1664). Samuel Cooper learnt the art of miniature painting in his uncle’s studio and it was not long before his talent exceeded that of this master – Roger de Piles observing that John Hoskins became jealous and ‘finding that the Court was better pleas’d with his Nephew’s Performances than with his, he took him in Partner with him; but still seeing Mr Cooper’s Pictures were more relish’d, he was pleas’d to dismiss the partnership, and so our Artist set up for himself, carrying most part of the Business of that time before him.’²

Cooper’s portraits combine a palpable sense of presence with a penetrating awareness of his sitters’ personalities. They are executed with breathtaking fluency of touch and have a verisimilitude that beguiled his contemporaries. The four drawings presented here embody these virtues.

Aside from the works within this collection, only three other drawings by Samuel Cooper are known to have survived: two portraits of King Charles II (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) and a portrait of Thomas Alcock (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).³

Richard Gibson

The long life of the artist Richard Gibson (1605/15-1690), a dwarf who was 3 feet 10 inches in height, is interwoven in the history of English court life. His early training was under Francis Cleyn (c. 1582-1658) and from the late 1630s he entered the service of the Lord Chamberlain, Philip, 4^th Earl of Pembroke. It was in Lord Pembroke’s household that Gibson met his future wife, Anne Sheppard (d. 1707), also a dwarf. Their marriage, in February 1641, was one of the last court festivities in London before the onset of the Civil War. After his death in 1650, Lord Pembroke’s patronage was taken up by his grandson, the 2^nd Earl of Carnarvon. Throughout this period and after the Restoration in 1660, Gibson’s work was much in demand. Gibson held the position of ‘picture marker’ to Charles II after the death, in 1672, of the previous incumbent, Samuel Cooper. The following year, Gibson relinquished the post when he was appointed ‘drawings master’ to the daughters of James, Duke of York. In 1677, he accompanied Princess Mary to the Hague at the time of her marriage to Prince William of Orange, remaining in the Netherlands for over ten years. He returned to London when Princess Mary and William of Orange acceded to the British throne 1688. Of the five surviving children of Richard and Anne Gibson, one was the miniaturist Susannah-Penelope Rosse. 

Richard Gibson’s work as a miniaturist is well known. The drawings in the present collection offer a unique opportunity to appreciate his work on paper.  

Susannah-Penelope Rosse

There is apparently no surviving record of the birth or christening of Susannah-Penelope Rosse, née Gibson, but it may be presumed she was born circa 1655, given that George Vertue noted, ‘She was about 45 years of age when she died’ in 1700.⁴ The date of her marriage to Michael Rosse, son of Christopher Rosse, a wealthy jeweller employed at the court, is also unrecorded. It is interesting to note that in 1673, Rosse senior moved into the house on Henrietta Street that had formerly been the residence of Samuel Cooper. According to George Vertue, Susannah-Penelope Rosse learnt the art of miniature painting under her father. However, ‘being inamour’d with Cooper’s limnings, she studied and copy’d them to perfection.’⁵ Given the wealth and status of her husband’s family, it is likely that Susannah-Penelope Rosse’s activity as an artist was more that of an amateur, albeit one of considerable ability.

1. D. Foskett, Collecting Miniatures, London 1979, p. 95

2. R. de Piles, The Art of Painting… London 1744, p. 365 

3. Royal Collection: RCIN 914039 & RCIN 914040 and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: WA18971.33

4. Vertue Notebooks, 1, 117

5. Ibid



This work

On what is now considered the verso of this sheet there is a portrait of a man with long curling hair and wearing a lawn collar that dates the drawing to circa 1650. The image is striking for its vitality, as if the sitter has just become aware of the viewer’s presence. The subject is almost certainly John Hoskins, Junior, Samuel Cooper’s first cousin. This identification is based upon comparison with a miniature inscribed 1656/ iH/ IPSE, that has been identified as a self-portrait by John Hoskins Junior (collection of the Duke of Buccleuch).¹

Sometime later the other side of this sheet of paper was used for what is unquestionably one of the most poignant and moving images of the British school: a study of an infant child on its death bed. As the inscription indicates the subject is the child of John Hoskins Junior.

Until recently this child was assumed to be that of John Hoskins Junior and Grace Beaumont of Wells whom he had married in 1670 and thus dating the drawing to the last years of Samuel Cooper’s life. However, a recently discovered complaint filed by John Hoskins Junior in the Court of Chancery proves that he had been married previously, to Mary Stevens.² There were at least two surviving children from this marriage - Frances and Mary - a union which probably took place in the late 1640s. These children were among the five recipients of mourning rings bequeathed by Samuel Cooper in 1672.³ This legal document makes it more likely that the subject of the present drawing is a child from Hoskins’ first marriage and thus presumably dating from the 1650s.

While the portrait of the infant’s father is executed in sweeping strokes which convey movement and life, here there is an almost overwhelming sense of stillness and silence. This has been achieved through the use of delicate crosshatching and the judicious use of bodycolour. The emotional intensity of the image is enforced by Cooper’s decision to focus on certain areas while leaving others suggested – such as treatment of the hands. One senses Cooper’s urgent need to capture this poignant occasion. Having used the first readily available sheet of paper, he then cropped it on the right side to centralize the infant’s portrait. This, however, resulted in the loss of the upper section of the portrait on the reverse.

John Hoskins Junior was the son of the ‘eminent limner’ John Hoskins Senior (circa 1590-1665) and his first wife, whose Christian name is unknown (see lots 9 & 10).⁴ He is thought to have worked in his father’s studio during the 1630s and 1640s, before becoming an artist in his own right. Certainly, his individual success is indicated by Samuel Pepys, who invited him to dinner in 1668. Other guests at that party included Hoskins’ cousin Samuel Cooper, the painter John Hayls, the actor Henry Harris and the poet Samuel Butler. Pepys commented in his diary afterwards that his guests were ‘all eminent men in their way.’⁵

From the marriage of John Hoskins Junior and Grace Beaumont there were seven surviving children. Until around 1653, Hoskins Junior and his first wife lived in his father’s house in Bedford Street, Covent Garden; by 1658 he is recorded as living at Durham Yard, just off the Strand and his final years were spent in Chelsea, where his residence is recorded in 1703.   

1. D. Foskett, lit.op.cit, 1974, p. 85, no. 155

2. R. Stephens, lit.op.cit, 2018, pp. 79-80

3. M. Edmonds, lit.op.cit, 1980, pp. 110-111

4. R. de Piles, The Art of Painting, London 1744, p. 437

5. P. Hunt, Samuel Pepys in the Diary, London 1958, p. 83