DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0414
388 OLD WORLD MASTERS
to become the possessor of it and no wonder that Horace Walpole
wrote of it in his catalogue ‘very good.’ Of the nine pictures which
decorated the walls of Mark Hall grand staircase, three were by Gains-
borough and included the remarkable portrait of General Honywood.
It is the largest work by that master and has the reputation also of
being the finest equestrian portrait ever painted by Gainsborough,
competing only with Van Dyck’s Portrait of Charles I in the Prado
Gallery, Madrid, with which it has more than once been compared.”
The landscape, it is interesting to say, is a part of the park at Mark
Hall. General Philip Honywood of Mark Hall came of an old Kentish
family deriving its origin from a place called Honewood or Hunewood
in the parish of Postling in Kent, where they had held lands since the
Norman Conquest. General Philip Honywood was born in 1710 and
succeeded his nephew in 1758. He was a General of His Majesty’s
forces, Colonel of the Third Royal Dragoon Guards, Governor of the
Town and Citadel of Kinston-upon-Hull and was also member of
Parliament for thirty-one years for the borough of Appleby in the
County of Westmoreland. Philip Honywood was always familiarly
called “the General” and he died in 1785.
Until 1878 this portrait remained in possession of the Honywood
family at Mark Hall.
Sir Walter Armstrong in his Gainsborough writes:
“It represents the General riding across the canvas from left to .
right. He wears a scarlet uniform and carries his sword, unsheathed,
in his right hand; he has no scabbard. The horse, a rich bay, is a
little too long. The painter has not taken the precaution to draw
him in before commencing the figure, and so the fore-quarters are
separated from the hind by rather too much middle-piece. This
mistake is still more conspicuous in the Colonel St. Leger at Hampton
Court, where a quite unreasonable amount of horse shows behind the
figure. Otherwise, the Honywood picture is as successful in design
as it is in all other ways. The landscape is one of the finest back-
grounds ever painted and reminds one of the backgrounds to some of
those equestrian portraits by Velasquez which Gainsborough never
saw. It is curious that Reynolds had sent a General on Horseback to
to become the possessor of it and no wonder that Horace Walpole
wrote of it in his catalogue ‘very good.’ Of the nine pictures which
decorated the walls of Mark Hall grand staircase, three were by Gains-
borough and included the remarkable portrait of General Honywood.
It is the largest work by that master and has the reputation also of
being the finest equestrian portrait ever painted by Gainsborough,
competing only with Van Dyck’s Portrait of Charles I in the Prado
Gallery, Madrid, with which it has more than once been compared.”
The landscape, it is interesting to say, is a part of the park at Mark
Hall. General Philip Honywood of Mark Hall came of an old Kentish
family deriving its origin from a place called Honewood or Hunewood
in the parish of Postling in Kent, where they had held lands since the
Norman Conquest. General Philip Honywood was born in 1710 and
succeeded his nephew in 1758. He was a General of His Majesty’s
forces, Colonel of the Third Royal Dragoon Guards, Governor of the
Town and Citadel of Kinston-upon-Hull and was also member of
Parliament for thirty-one years for the borough of Appleby in the
County of Westmoreland. Philip Honywood was always familiarly
called “the General” and he died in 1785.
Until 1878 this portrait remained in possession of the Honywood
family at Mark Hall.
Sir Walter Armstrong in his Gainsborough writes:
“It represents the General riding across the canvas from left to .
right. He wears a scarlet uniform and carries his sword, unsheathed,
in his right hand; he has no scabbard. The horse, a rich bay, is a
little too long. The painter has not taken the precaution to draw
him in before commencing the figure, and so the fore-quarters are
separated from the hind by rather too much middle-piece. This
mistake is still more conspicuous in the Colonel St. Leger at Hampton
Court, where a quite unreasonable amount of horse shows behind the
figure. Otherwise, the Honywood picture is as successful in design
as it is in all other ways. The landscape is one of the finest back-
grounds ever painted and reminds one of the backgrounds to some of
those equestrian portraits by Velasquez which Gainsborough never
saw. It is curious that Reynolds had sent a General on Horseback to