DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0396
370
OLD WORLD MASTERS
The picture is nearly three-quarter length and represents the Duchess
in a gold-tinted dress with hair dressed high and powdered and wear-
ing lovely pearls. Her head is posed upon her left hand and the arm
rests upon a pedestal that is barely visible. There is good reason for
thinking this portrait was originally full-length and that it has been
cut down. It is interesting to compare this portrait of the Duchess
of Gloucester with The Hon. Mrs. Graham in the National Gallery,
Edinburgh, who is painted, full length, and is resting her arm, like-
wise, on a pedestal.
“The introduction of a parapet, or indeed, of any kind of archi-
tectural setting in a portrait of kit-cat size is most unusual. The left
arm resting on the parapet and the large scale on which the head is
here painted, confirm our view that our canvas was originally, as Ful-
cher claims, a whole length. This canvas to-day is almost exactly
kit-cat size. It may well have been cut down to meet the require-
ments of hanging. Half a century ago such a practice was not un-
known, especially in the English Royal Collections. It will be re-
membered that the lower portions of the canvas of Gainsborough’s
Eldest Princesses was very inceremoniously cut away in the early
part of the Nineteenth Century.
“A kit-cat, strictly speaking, is a canvas for a portrait less than a
half-length, but including the hands, and measuring 36 by 28 inches.
It is so called from the portraits of the members of the Club at Barn
Elms, who seem to have originally met in the pie-house kept in Shire
Lane, London, by one Kit (i.e. Christopher) Cat. These portraits
are now in the Baker Collection at Bayfordbury, near Hertford.” *
In June 1904 The London Times stated that “The Duke of Cam-
bridge’s pictures, which are now hung on Christie’s walls, form the
largest collection of portraits of the reigning house that has ever been
offered for sale. All, in fact, represent George HI and his family,
with their husbands and wives. By far the finest is Gainsborough’s
Maria Walpole, Countess of Waldegrave and Duchess of Gloucester,
Horace Walpole’s beautiful niece.”
These art-treasures, as well as Gloucester House, had been inherited
* Maurice W. Brockwell, Taft Catalogue of Paintings (New York, 1920).
OLD WORLD MASTERS
The picture is nearly three-quarter length and represents the Duchess
in a gold-tinted dress with hair dressed high and powdered and wear-
ing lovely pearls. Her head is posed upon her left hand and the arm
rests upon a pedestal that is barely visible. There is good reason for
thinking this portrait was originally full-length and that it has been
cut down. It is interesting to compare this portrait of the Duchess
of Gloucester with The Hon. Mrs. Graham in the National Gallery,
Edinburgh, who is painted, full length, and is resting her arm, like-
wise, on a pedestal.
“The introduction of a parapet, or indeed, of any kind of archi-
tectural setting in a portrait of kit-cat size is most unusual. The left
arm resting on the parapet and the large scale on which the head is
here painted, confirm our view that our canvas was originally, as Ful-
cher claims, a whole length. This canvas to-day is almost exactly
kit-cat size. It may well have been cut down to meet the require-
ments of hanging. Half a century ago such a practice was not un-
known, especially in the English Royal Collections. It will be re-
membered that the lower portions of the canvas of Gainsborough’s
Eldest Princesses was very inceremoniously cut away in the early
part of the Nineteenth Century.
“A kit-cat, strictly speaking, is a canvas for a portrait less than a
half-length, but including the hands, and measuring 36 by 28 inches.
It is so called from the portraits of the members of the Club at Barn
Elms, who seem to have originally met in the pie-house kept in Shire
Lane, London, by one Kit (i.e. Christopher) Cat. These portraits
are now in the Baker Collection at Bayfordbury, near Hertford.” *
In June 1904 The London Times stated that “The Duke of Cam-
bridge’s pictures, which are now hung on Christie’s walls, form the
largest collection of portraits of the reigning house that has ever been
offered for sale. All, in fact, represent George HI and his family,
with their husbands and wives. By far the finest is Gainsborough’s
Maria Walpole, Countess of Waldegrave and Duchess of Gloucester,
Horace Walpole’s beautiful niece.”
These art-treasures, as well as Gloucester House, had been inherited
* Maurice W. Brockwell, Taft Catalogue of Paintings (New York, 1920).