David Allan 1744 - 1796

Commissioned from the artist by Sir William Hamilton;
Probably given by the above to Sholto Charles Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton (1732-74) when in Naples;
By descent to George Douglas, 17^th Earl of Morton, his son, who married, Elizabeth, sister of John Yarde-Buller, 1^st Baron Churston;
By descent to John Yarde-Buller, 3rd Baron Churston, by whom sold, Christie's, 26th June 1925, lot  1, where acquired by Agnew's on behalf of Georgiana G. Anson, the Earl of Morton's great-grand-niece;
Thence by family descent

CEMA, English Conversation Pictures, no. 25

This intimate portrait of Sir William and his first wife, Catherine, follows in the established tradition of the ‘conversation piece’ which had been so enthusiastically exemplified in Scotland by John Thomas Seton and Gawen Hamilton.

David Allan has portrayed Sir William Hamilton sitting in his Naples house listening to his wife play the harpsichord.  Allan has included many details of Sir William’s interests, not least the classical bust of Zeus, and the distant view of Vesuvius smoking in the background.  Sir William Hamilton had a great admiration for David Allan describing him as ‘one of the greatest geniuses I ever met with; he is indefatigable’ (quoted in T. Crouther Gordon, David Allan, 1951, p.21).  Sir William sat to Allan a second time in 1775 for a full length portrait wearing robes of the Order of the Bath (National Portrait Gallery) which Allan later presented to the British Museum as ‘a small testimony of my dutiful regard’ (B. Skinner, The Indefatigable Mr Allan, Exh. Cat., Scottish Arts Council, 1973, under no.41).  Allan himself was clearly pleased with the composition of the present work since he reprised a similar composition of figures around a musical instrument for his group portrait of the Grant family (see David and Francina Irwin, Scottish Painters, At Home and Abroad 1700-1900, 1975, p.68). 

David Allan is known to have been in Italy by the summer of 1767 and he made a number of trips to Naples where he must have been introduced to Sir William.  Allan produced relatively few portraits during his stay in Italy.  He was aspiring to be a history painter, and only began to focus seriously on portraiture when he returned to Scotland.

Hamilton married his first wife on 26^th January 1758.  Lady Hamilton was the daughter of John Barlow, M.P. of Slebech, Pembrokeshire, and his wife, Ann Skrine.  Hamilton later wrote that he had married ‘a virtuous good-tempered woman with a little independent fortune' (Letter from William Hamilton to C.F. Greville, 12^th September 1780) and the couple seemed to live happily together.  They shared a passion for music, and Catherine was an accomplished harpsichord player.  She died in 1782, and in 1791 Sir William took as his second wife, Emma Hamilton, who herself later became the mistress of Nelson. 

The painting was probably acquired in Naples by the Earl of Morton.  He arrived in Naples with his family in 1774, and was clearly familiar with Sir William Hamilton, since Hamilton mentioned in his correspondence that the Mortons were to go on a tour of Sicily, where the Earl subsequently died.  More importantly there was a family connection between the two men since the Earl of Morton had married Katherine Hamilton (1736-1823) who was the granddaughter of the 6th Earl of Haddington.  It is likely that this fine and intimate portrait of a true connoisseur was given to the Earl of Morton by Sir William as a gift.

Two further autograph versions of the composition by Allan are known, one at Blair Atholl and the other in the collection of Lord Cathcart.