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Description: | The sitter, Richard Peckham, is seen half length in an informal pose turned three-quarters to the right wearing a blue silk overcoat, an embroidered ochre waistcoat, white ruffed shirt and a burgundy painter's hat. He was a distant cousin of Henry Peckham who built Pallant House and is depicted with the air of a fashionable young gentleman of his day. The painting has been attributed to Bartolomeo Nazzari (1699-1758) since at least 1949. However, the recent revival of an old attribution to Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) is convincing on various grounds. Informal portraits such as that of Richard Peckham are uncommon in Nazzari's oeuvre, while they represent a major element of Hudson's output, on which he built his reputation as the most fashionable London portrait painter during the 1740s. The Pallant House portrait and Hudson's Portrait of a Man (1750; Dulwich Picture Gallery), share some significant resemblances: in both the sitter's features are treated with bright tones and the silks with exquisite luminosity. Both are reminiscent of the elegant pastels of the leading continental society portraitists Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) and Maurice-Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788) with whose works Hudson would have had familiarity, especially after visiting France in 1748 and Italy in 1752. Furthermore, the attribution to Nazzari is additionally weakened by the fact that it is unknown if Peckham travelled to Italy, while Nazzari, unlike many of his Venetian peers, appears not to have visited England. | Subjects: | portrait (Peckham Richard) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Hudson, Thomas (English painter, 1701-1779) Æ Attributed to Previously attributed to Nazzari, Bartolomeo (Italian painter and printmaker, 1699-1758) | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8513... | Go to resource |
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