Sold....pair of Portraits of John and Anne Brickdale 1814, by Henry Singleton.

Pair of oils on canvas in elaborate gilded frames.

John Brickdale was the son of Matthew Brickdale M.P. (see portrait 8576), he was born c.1760 in West Monkton, Somerset. His grandfather, also John, and his father had a very successful drapers in High Street, Bristol. On the death of his grandfather in 1765, his father Matthew inherited the enormous sum of £100,000 and, abandoning trade, turned to politics.

John followed his footsteps.

Although the family was wealthy and his father now an MP, John wished to distance himself even further from the then perceived stigma of being in trade. Accordingly he married Anne Inglett Fortescue on 20 February 1787 in St. Gregory's Church, Dawlish, Devon. The Fortescues were an ancient landed gentry family, socially superior to the Brickdales.

The union resulted in six children.

(Interestingly, a later descendent, Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (1871-1945) was a noted Pre-Raphaelite artist; she was so admired by the famous painter George Frederick Watts that he claimed her work to be so fine it made him want to throw away his brushes and paint no more.)

John became an MP and Deputy Lieutenant for Somerset and Devon.

In his will he left £200 to the Bristol Infirmary and £100 to that of Shrewsbury.

As he rose socially John's father Matthew had bought the manors of East and West Stoodleigh about the year 1779.

Stoodleigh Manor, the family home, lay in the hundred of Witheridge and in the deanery of South Molton, about seven miles from Tiverton.

John sold these estates, in 1819, to John Nicholas Fazakerly, Esq., M. P.

The ancient house was demolished in 1881 and replaced by the Victorian Gothic Stoodleigh Court, now an hotel.

HENRY SINGLETON (1766 - 1839) was born in London, England on 19 October 1766. He died in London, at the house of a friend at 7 Kensington Gore, on 15 September 1839, and was buried in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

Singleton exhibited at the Royal Academy, between 1784 and 1839, approximately 300 works, a large proportion of which were portraits, He was for many years the oldest living exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His works were also exhibited at the British Institution from 1806 and at the Society of British Artists from 1824 until his death in 1839.

From the age of sixteen, Henry Singleton worked as a professional portraitist. He attended the Royal Academy Schools from the age of seventeen and won the silver medal in 1784. His painting from John Dryden’s ode Alexander’s Feast won the gold medal in 1788. In 1793, he was commissioned by the Royal Academy to paint a group portrait of forty of the academicians.

His portrait work was always in demand... Lord Nelson, Admiral Vernon, Lord Howe, John 'Mad Jack' Fuller,Sir W. Chambers, James Northcote, Thomas Sandby, Richard Cosway and Johann Zoffany are among his portrait sitters.

In 1807 he married his cousin, William Singleton’s only daughter; the mariage was of short duration as she died in 1811.

Henry Singleton’s works are currently in the collections of: The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery (London), the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, the Ulster Museum, and the Brighton Art Gallery.

SIZE (of each portrait) 40 x 35 inches inc. frame.

PROVENANCE: by descent.

Verso; old inscriptions. 'John Brickdale of Stoodleigh, Devon by Singleton. Painted in 1814' and 'Anne Fortescue Wife of John Brickdale by Singleton. Painted in 1814'

NOTE: THE PRICE GIVEN IS FOR THE PAIR OF PORTRAITS.