ROBERT HUNTER | PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH LEESON, LATER 2ND EARL OF MILLTOWN (1730-1801), FULL-LENGTH, STANDING BY A CLASSICAL URN, A LANDSCAPE BEYOND

Auction Closed

January 21, 06:17 PM GMT

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

KILLADOON HOUSE, PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT IRISH ESTATE

ROBERT HUNTER

Ulster active 1752 - 1803 Dublin

PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH LEESON, LATER 2ND EARL OF MILLTOWN (1730-1801), FULL-LENGTH, STANDING BY A CLASSICAL URN, A LANDSCAPE BEYOND

oil on canvas

76.4 x 63.5 cm.; 30⅛ x 25 in.

Please note that the canvas is unlined, and not as stated in the printed catalogue.

Joseph Leeson, 2nd Earl of Milltown (1730-1801), Russborough House, County Wicklow;

By whom gifted to Elizabeth, Lady Leitrim (d. 1817).

A. Crookshank, 'Robert Hunter', in Irish Arts Review Yearbook, 1989-1990, p. 183, cat. no. 55.

Belfast, Ulster Museum, Exhibition of Portraits of Great Irish men and women, 24 June - 24 July 1965, no. 116 (as Arthur Devis);

Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Exhibition of Paintings from Irish Collections, 20 May - 25 August 1957 (as Arthur Devis).

Leeson is notable as being the subject of the earliest extant portrait by Pompeo Batoni of a British sitter, painted in Rome and dating from 1751, which is today in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (inv. no. NGI.702). Here he is shown in Van Dyck costume. Leeson was MP for Thomastown in 1757-60, and succeeded his father as Earl of Milltown in 1783.