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Description: | Oil on canvas. Sporting paintings, like this example, showing country gentlemen engaged in outdoor pursuits, enjoyed great popularity in Britain from the early 18th century. As the identity of the sitter is now unknown, the title given to the portrait (probably assigned in the 20th century) alludes to 'The Compleat Angler' (1653), a well-known book on the sport by Izaak Walton.
Nothing is known of the early history of the painting. However, in the mid-20th-century it was owned by publisher and printer Walter Hutchinson. Hutchinson formed a substantial collection of sporting paintings and, in 1949, founded the National Gallery of British Sports and Pastimes. The gallery was located at Derby House (renamed Hutchinson House) in Stratford Place, off Oxford Street. Hutchinson was somewhat presumptuous in calling it a ‘National Gallery’ for it was never presented to the nation and, following his death (a year after the gallery’s opening) the collection was dispersed. | Subjects: | unknown man wig breeches mountain sport male portrait cravat fishing rod stockings snake angling tree 18th century costume landscape C18th dog shoe coat man shirt river | Temporal: | c.1750; 1740/1760 | Source: | Government Art Collection | Creator: | Arthur Devis | Identifier: | http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/work.aspx?... | Go to resource |
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