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Description: | Acquisition: gift from Sir Hubert von Herkomer, 1891 Description: Three- quarter length, seated to left; white hair and flowing beard; white collar and cuffs; black gown of Master of Arts (M.A.) over black dress; pink rose in buttonhole of coat; both hands, his right holding a magnifying lens, his left a butterfly on a pin, before him; dark brown background. This study, and OP nos 182, 183 and 186, were painted before Herkomer's class in the course of the years that Sir Hubert held the Slade Professorship, 1885-94. 'Now, I always had misgivings about a literary judgement on art, for it loses sight of a vital element, the technique. I intended therefore to leave the literature of art in the background, and to place before the students painting "in the making," to demonstrate the art by actually painting a portrait in their presence. ... I would paint a half-length portrait of some well-known member of the University, who offered himself as my subject, in six sittings of an hour each. Several of these portraits I presented to the Taylor Gallery in Oxford, just as I left them (more or less finished) at the sixth demonstration lecture.' (H. von Herkomer, The Herkomers, 2 vols, 1910-11, 2, p.91) Westwood was Keeper of the University Galleries, 1890-1908. The portrait was moved from the Ashmolean Museum to the Examination Schools in 1983. External Link: Oxford Portraits website | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: by Sir Hubert von Herkomer | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=918... | Go to resource |
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