Allan Ramsay

by descent from the sitter

London and Edinburgh, National Portrait Gallery, Allan Ramsay 1713-1784,  1992-3, no. 73

A. Smart, Allan Ramsay; A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, London 1999, no. 220, p. 127, illus. fig. 526 & in colour, pl. 35.

The following condition report has been provided by Hamish Dewar, an independent restorer who is not employed by Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas has been lined and this is ensuring a stable structural support and has successfully secured the overall craquelure pattern. Paint surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows small scattered retouchings, the great majority of which are filling fine lines of craquelure. These are around the sitter's head where I assume the craquelure line corresponds to pentimenti, and on the sitter's left arm and collar. There are very minimal filled lines of craquelure on the sitter's face. There are two rectangular shaped area of retouching, each approximately 4 x 2 cm, one which is just beneath the upper horizontal framing edge and the other just above the lower horizontal framing edge in lower left of the composition. There are other small scattered retouchings. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition and no further work is required. A detailed report on the frame by Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts is available upon request from the department. To speak to a specialist about this lot please contact Julian Gascoigne on +44 (0)207 293 5482, or at julian.gascoigne@sothebys.com.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is one of the most beautiful of all Ramsay's male portraits, with its serpentine pose and rich, intricately brocaded costume. The sitter leans nonchalantly on a pile of books lying on a table beside him before a fluted pilaster, an obvious reference to his learning and classical taste, whilst his other hand rests upon the hilt of his sword, a sign of his noble birth. The sitter, William, was the only son of Sir John Guise, 4th Bt. of Elmore Court, Gloucestershire, whom he succeeded in 1769. In 1751 he graduated M.A. from Oxford, and in 1754 entered Lincoln's Inn as a barrister, before embarking on the Grand Tour. In 1770 he was elected Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire, establishing his political career, the majority of which was spent in support of the opposition.

In October 1762, at the age of twenty five, Guise travelled to Lausanne in Switzerland, where he met the future historian and celebrated antiquarian Edward Gibbon. Finding Guise a "very sensible well-bred man", the two decided to travel together to Italy. Two years older than Guise, and having already spent five years in Lausanne, Gibbon embodied the personification of the English Grand Tourist; of all the British travellers who visited Italy in the eighteenth century, none were so thoroughly prepared, nor were their travels to have such consequence.

Entering Italy via Mont Cenis, Guise and Gibbon came first to Turin, from whence they travelled to Florence by road. They remained in Florence for four months, visiting the Uffizi fourteen times. Whilst there the pair met the British artist Thomas Patch, who was resident in the city at the time, and attended the conversazioni of Horace Mann, before travelling on to Pisa. During this time Gibbon wrote home to his father, reporting that "Mr Guise and I travel in great harmony and good humour. He is indeed a very worthy sensible man... He is very far from being ignorant and will be more so every day, as he has a very proper spirit of curiosity and enquiry." On 2^nd October 1764 they reached Rome, an event which inspired strong emotion in both of them, and three days later, along with William Ponsonby, submitted to a course from the great cicerone James Byres. It was in Rome, whilst "musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol," that the inspiration for Gibbon's great historical triumph The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, written between 1776 and 1788, first came to him.

Continuing south the pair spent six weeks in Naples, before returning briefly to Rome and then travelled back overland via Ferrara, Padua and Venice, which afforded them "some hours of astonishment". After re-crossing the Alps the two friends finaly separated in Lyons some time in the early summer of 1765. On his return to London Guise became a member of Gibbon's Roman Club, which the latter described as "a weekly convivial meeting established by myself and [fellow] travellers".  

A costume study by Ramsay for the present painting, in black chalk on light blue paper, is at the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven (B1977.14.6069), and is inscribed in Ramsay's own hand in the upper right: 7 button / from bottom. The rococo elegance of the pose, which alludes to both contemporary French and Italian portraiture, as developed by artists like Fragonard and Batoni, was influential on later British artists and may well have made a particular impression of Francis Cotes, whose similarly proportioned Portrait of Richard Myddelton (Chirk Castle) is very close in mood. It also serves to illustrate the cosmopolitan taste and sophistication of the sitter, as does the extravagance of his attire. Dressed in a formal suit of coat, waistcoat and knee-breeches, all of the same Italian silk and cut velvet, the sitter's costume is likely to be his court dress. The trimming of his waistcoat, with its fly fringe of fine floss silk in decorative knots, is a piece of attire that often appeared at court in the middle decades of the 18th century. His formal powdered wig, worn en solitaire (that is with the black ribbon which ties the wig at the back brought round to the front and tucked into the lace ruffle on the shirt front), and the black beaver hat, known as a chapeau bras,  tucked under his arm, are two further formal elements with indicate he is wearing court dress.