DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0420
394
OLD WORLD MASTERS
The picture is in oils on canvas (90 x 58 inches) and was painted in
1779-1780. In the Catalogue Raisonne of Romney’s works we read:
“Whole length, when a youth, standing, facing towards and look-
ing to the front; long hair; purple dress, white turned-down collar,
white stockings and black shoes with silver buckles; standing by his
horse, which is drinking at a stream to the left; right hand holding the
reins; left hand holding whip; trees in the distance.”
For several years this lovely picture was in the Collection of Asher
Wertheimer, Esq., of London.
John Walter Tempest was the only son of John Tempest, Esq., of
Sherburn, County Durham, and member of Parliament for Durham.
He died in 1793 at B righthelmstone, where he had gone for his health.
The German critic, August Grisebach, has a profound admiration
for this portrait. Writing in Die Kunst fur Alle (1908), he says:
“As a new representation of the half-grown boy Romney’s John
Walter Tempest stands next to the Blue Boy. In place of the warm
lighting of the brilliant silk of the correctly adorned boy in Van Dyck
style and the aristocratic pose of the manufacturer’s son, is the simple
cloth coat of subdued violet against the light-brown horse, so quiet
and reserved in color and line, similar to an antique relief.”
The Strawberry Girl is reckoned among the most original of Sir
Joshua Reynolds’s works. Surely John Walter Tempest is one of Rom-
ney’s most brilliant triumphs! Moreover,the picture is highly original.
For a great number of years George Romney in his house, No. 32
Cavendish Square, shared the patronage of the aristocracy with
Reynolds and Gainsborough. Romney’s career was remarkable, for
he had almost no training. Romney was born in 1734 at Beckside,
near Dalton in Cumberland, the son of a cabinet-maker, who wrote
his name Rumney. He, too, was destined for a cabinet-maker, but
made the acquaintance in Kendal of a portrait-painter named Christo-
pher Steele, who had studied with Carle Van Loo, and became his
pupil and apprentice in 1755. Romney soon painted a number of
portraits in Kendal and also a hand holding a letter for the town post-
office, which attracted much attention.
Undoubtedly Romney acquired something of the French style
OLD WORLD MASTERS
The picture is in oils on canvas (90 x 58 inches) and was painted in
1779-1780. In the Catalogue Raisonne of Romney’s works we read:
“Whole length, when a youth, standing, facing towards and look-
ing to the front; long hair; purple dress, white turned-down collar,
white stockings and black shoes with silver buckles; standing by his
horse, which is drinking at a stream to the left; right hand holding the
reins; left hand holding whip; trees in the distance.”
For several years this lovely picture was in the Collection of Asher
Wertheimer, Esq., of London.
John Walter Tempest was the only son of John Tempest, Esq., of
Sherburn, County Durham, and member of Parliament for Durham.
He died in 1793 at B righthelmstone, where he had gone for his health.
The German critic, August Grisebach, has a profound admiration
for this portrait. Writing in Die Kunst fur Alle (1908), he says:
“As a new representation of the half-grown boy Romney’s John
Walter Tempest stands next to the Blue Boy. In place of the warm
lighting of the brilliant silk of the correctly adorned boy in Van Dyck
style and the aristocratic pose of the manufacturer’s son, is the simple
cloth coat of subdued violet against the light-brown horse, so quiet
and reserved in color and line, similar to an antique relief.”
The Strawberry Girl is reckoned among the most original of Sir
Joshua Reynolds’s works. Surely John Walter Tempest is one of Rom-
ney’s most brilliant triumphs! Moreover,the picture is highly original.
For a great number of years George Romney in his house, No. 32
Cavendish Square, shared the patronage of the aristocracy with
Reynolds and Gainsborough. Romney’s career was remarkable, for
he had almost no training. Romney was born in 1734 at Beckside,
near Dalton in Cumberland, the son of a cabinet-maker, who wrote
his name Rumney. He, too, was destined for a cabinet-maker, but
made the acquaintance in Kendal of a portrait-painter named Christo-
pher Steele, who had studied with Carle Van Loo, and became his
pupil and apprentice in 1755. Romney soon painted a number of
portraits in Kendal and also a hand holding a letter for the town post-
office, which attracted much attention.
Undoubtedly Romney acquired something of the French style