JOHN OPIE, R.A. | Joseph sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites

George Rush, Esq. (d. 1851), Farthinghoe, Northamptonshire, before 1807;

By whom gifted to Mr. and Mrs. Edward Clarke;

Thence by inheritance to Mrs. Forbes, Brighton;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 28 January 1911, lot 102, for £1;

Mrs. P. Churchill, Burnicombe House, Scarborough;

By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 18 June 1931, lot 65, for £6 to Hoffman.

R. Steele, 'The Tatler', vol. 4, in British Classics, J. Sharpe (ed.), London 1804, pp. 203–07, reproduced no. 233;

A. Earland, Opie and his Circle, London 1911, pp. 330–31.

When Mrs. Edward Clarke sat for John Opie in 1807, he informed her that he had painted the present work twenty-one years prior, in 1785.(1)

1 See Earland 1911, p. 331.