William Dyce

By descent within the family of the sitter, to Colonel Sir William E. Jardine of Applegarth, Bt, OBE, TD, DL

London, Royal Academy, 1834, no. 6;
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1835, no. 99

Marcia Pointon, William Dyce 1806-1884, Oxford, 1979, p. 188, pl. 39;
William Dyce and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, exhibition catalogue, Aberdeen Art Gallery, 2006, p. 69

The canvas has been lined. There is a patch to the reverse of the canvas, corresponding to the upper left corner of the work. There is some minor frame abraision to the extreme edges. There is evidence of bitumen damage to various areas of the canvas. Including the figure.There is some minor craquelure and minor paint separation. Ultraviolet light reveals minor cosmetic retouching to various areas around the figure and some minor suggestions to the dress and face. Held in a decorative gold painted composite frame. With some minor damage to the extremities. Under glass and unexamined out of the frame.
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The Jardine family had lived at Applegarth in Dumfriesshire since early in the fourteenth century. The family was raised to the baronetage of Nova Scotia by Charles II in 1672. Alexander Jardine, who was born in 1829 and died in 1892, was to become the eighth baronet. He was five years old when the present portrait was made – and in which he is shown wearing a seventeenth-century style belted coat and wide linen collar.

In 1828 Dyce, who had then returned to Scotland after his two early visits to Italy, was asked by the daughter of Lord Seaforth to make a copy of a portrait by Thomas Lawrence of her late father. According to James Dafforne, writing in the 1860 Art Journal, 'he executed his task so satisfactorily, that the lady and other friends suggested he ought to turn his thoughts to portraiture; and, on his going to Edinburgh, about 1830, he soon found ample employment in this branch of Art'. Lawrence, who had complimented Dyce on his drawings at the time of his application to enter the Royal Academy schools in London as a probationer in 1825, was to be the inspiration for the portrait style that Dyce adopted and which is exemplified in the present work. Close attention is paid to the boy's physiognomy, which is shown with a strong cast of light. By contrast the clothing and the physical setting – on the left there is a turreted building and bridge – are more loosely treated and in sombre and muted colours, so as not to distract from the romantic image of childhood.