Portrait of a Gentleman, William Kennaway in a Blue Coat, Signed & Dated 1779; by John Downman (1750-1824), Oil on Copper Painting

This exquisite oil on copper portrait sits within one of the finest examples of the artist’s work. Signed and dated: “J Downman / pinx / 1779”, the gentleman is portrayed in a standard gentlemanly manner with one arm tucked into the front of his coat. One of the key’s to Downman’s success was his recognition of the importance of representing his sitter’s in the fashionable costume of the day – and that is evidenced here, with the blue coat and large gold buttons and red collar, frilled white cravat, and powdered wig tied at the nape of the neck in a queue. Downman successfully captured a real sense of the sitter’s character and the work is striking in its recording of fine details all of which have been meticulously rendered.

The sitter is Mr Kennaway of Exeter a fact known by a preparatory sketch that the artist made of this portrait, in black, red and white chalk on brown paper. It is dated in graphite, upper right (twice): 1779, and inscribed in brown ink on the mount “Mr Kennaway of Exeter 1779” (Fitzwilliam Museum).

The Kennaway family originated in Fife, Scotland. In 1713 the young William I Kennaway came from Scotland to Exeter in Devon to seek his fortune, and continue his trade as a serge-maker and clothier in the palmy days of Queen Anne. His son William (1718-93) followed him as a serge-maker but branched out on a wider scale altogether and in 1743 founded the merchanting business which has been so long associated with their name. In the 1780’s the account books show a spectacular expansion of the business, and William Kennaway senior took his two sons into the business as they came of age and ultimately a third son, all of whom were given a share in the profits and assets, which just before his death in 1793, they were worth about £83,000 between them, which was a very substantial fortune in eighteenth century Britain.

Like other Exeter merchants William Senior used some of this fortune to establish a private bank, in this case the Western Bank. His son William (1751-1819), the sitter in our portrait, carried on the family business of merchanting and banking, but in his day the Exeter woollen trade practically collapsed as a result of the Napoleonic wars and the business turned almost entirely to the importing of fine and let the woollen trade go. Another son of William senior, John Kennaway (1758-1836), entered the employment of the East India Company and made his name and fortune like so many other able young Englishmen in that profitable field. He showed himself to be a successful diplomatist and was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1791; returning to England he founded a landed family at Escot, near Ottery St. Mary, with an estate of some 4,000 acres. This portrait was previously thought to depict Sir John Kennaway, Bart however Sir John was in India in 1779 when Downman painted this portrait in Devon.

Our sitter was born on 16th November 1751, and after the collapse of the family’s woollen trade business, he ventured into the trade of wine. He married in 1779 – the year that the portrait was painted and in all likelihood the portrait was commissioned to celebrate this important occasion as was customary at the time. He died on 26th December 1819 and was buried at Wynard's Chapel of the Holy Trinity in Exeter, England.

The extraordinary popularity of John Downman’s portrait style during his own lifetime offers an interesting commentary on the state of British portraiture at the end of the eighteenth century, while his accurate records of contemporary fashion make him a valuable chronicler of his age, and his portraits are an invaluable reference for fashion historians today.

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