Paintings
Samuel Northcote, the Artist's Father
Samuel Northcote, a watchmaker and optician, was born at Plymouth in 1709, the son of an unsuccessful painter. Three of his seven children survived to maturity, among them the artist James Northcote and his brother Samuel (1743-1813). Samuel Northcote, Sr., died in 1791.
In addition to its significance as one of James Northcote's earliest extant works, this portrait of the artist's father Samuel Northcote, provides compelling evidence of the youthful artist's emulation of Joshua Reynolds, the most successful British painter of his day. According to an old inscription on the back of the canvas, the portrait was executed in 1773, midway through Northcote's tenure as Reynolds's pupil and resident assistant. The portrait was apparently modeled on a much earlier painting by Reynolds, Dr. John Mudge, F.R.S., executed in 1752 and given by the artist to the sitter in token of their lifelong friendship. Mudge was also a friend and neighbor of Northcote's family in Plymouth. A physician and surgeon, Mudge shared Samuel Northcote's interest in the science of optics, as evidenced by his treatise on the subject, published in 1777. It was probably Mudge who commissioned the first painting that James Northcote showed at the Royal Academy: a portrait of Dr. Mudge's brother, the London horologist Thomas Mudge, exhibited in 1773, the year of the present painting.
Reynolds's portrait of John Mudge would have been well known to Northcote (as well as his father), and the young artist had an opportunity of seeing it again during his visit to Plymouth in late summer 1773. It was evidently during that visit that he painted the present portrait. After his return to London in early October, Northcote received a letter from his brother, informing him that Reynolds (then on a visit to Plymouth) had called to see the paintings he had been working on. "He...asked to see your father's portrait, imagining that you had just finished it. After he had seen this he desired I would let him see the others of me. He said your father's was a very good head, but not so good a likeness as mine, and observed that the nose in your father's picture was too full at the end." Bulbous nose notwithstanding, and despite the hard, mask-like quality of the face (possibly exacerbated by the painting's compromised condition), Northcote seems to have captured a good likeness, as demonstrated by comparison with a more sophisticated portrait of his father, which he painted thirteen years later (Lady Rosalind Northcote collection).
Like Reynolds in his portrait of Mudge, Northcote here portrays his father as a man of modest means but substantial intellect. He is dressed in a similar sort of loose black cap and baggy woollen mantle, which (together with the subdued, nearly monochromatic color scheme, chiaroscuro, and intimate mode of presentation) calls to mind the portraiture of the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69). The sitter's distant gaze and the book held open with his right thumb establish a mood of thoughtful concentration. The qualities of asceticism and mentality emphasized by the portrait accurately reflect Northcote's conception of his father. In his memoirs, he described him as "a pious, studious, humble and ingenious man, one better calculated to make a good use of money when got than to get it," but "valued by all who knew him for his great integrity, abilities and general knowledge."
In addition to its significance as one of James Northcote's earliest extant works, this portrait of the artist's father Samuel Northcote, provides compelling evidence of the youthful artist's emulation of Joshua Reynolds, the most successful British painter of his day. According to an old inscription on the back of the canvas, the portrait was executed in 1773, midway through Northcote's tenure as Reynolds's pupil and resident assistant. The portrait was apparently modeled on a much earlier painting by Reynolds, Dr. John Mudge, F.R.S., executed in 1752 and given by the artist to the sitter in token of their lifelong friendship. Mudge was also a friend and neighbor of Northcote's family in Plymouth. A physician and surgeon, Mudge shared Samuel Northcote's interest in the science of optics, as evidenced by his treatise on the subject, published in 1777. It was probably Mudge who commissioned the first painting that James Northcote showed at the Royal Academy: a portrait of Dr. Mudge's brother, the London horologist Thomas Mudge, exhibited in 1773, the year of the present painting.
Reynolds's portrait of John Mudge would have been well known to Northcote (as well as his father), and the young artist had an opportunity of seeing it again during his visit to Plymouth in late summer 1773. It was evidently during that visit that he painted the present portrait. After his return to London in early October, Northcote received a letter from his brother, informing him that Reynolds (then on a visit to Plymouth) had called to see the paintings he had been working on. "He...asked to see your father's portrait, imagining that you had just finished it. After he had seen this he desired I would let him see the others of me. He said your father's was a very good head, but not so good a likeness as mine, and observed that the nose in your father's picture was too full at the end." Bulbous nose notwithstanding, and despite the hard, mask-like quality of the face (possibly exacerbated by the painting's compromised condition), Northcote seems to have captured a good likeness, as demonstrated by comparison with a more sophisticated portrait of his father, which he painted thirteen years later (Lady Rosalind Northcote collection).
Like Reynolds in his portrait of Mudge, Northcote here portrays his father as a man of modest means but substantial intellect. He is dressed in a similar sort of loose black cap and baggy woollen mantle, which (together with the subdued, nearly monochromatic color scheme, chiaroscuro, and intimate mode of presentation) calls to mind the portraiture of the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69). The sitter's distant gaze and the book held open with his right thumb establish a mood of thoughtful concentration. The qualities of asceticism and mentality emphasized by the portrait accurately reflect Northcote's conception of his father. In his memoirs, he described him as "a pious, studious, humble and ingenious man, one better calculated to make a good use of money when got than to get it," but "valued by all who knew him for his great integrity, abilities and general knowledge."
