Sold....portrait of a Lady C.1750, by James Cranke.

Oil on canvas in a good 18th century carved and giltwood frame.

A fine portrait typical of its period and the artist's style painted with a great sensitivity to the character of the sitter.

JAMES CRANKE (1707 – 1780) was born at Little Urswick, near Barrow, and lived there for most of his life. He started as a plasterer and trained himself as an artist to a very high level.

He attended St. Martin's Lane Academy and in 1744 he married a well-known heiress and opened his own studio in Bloomsbury Square.

Vertue, in 1746, said he had seen a portrait of Cranke's "painted strongly...and at least as well as anyone living", by then Cranke was charging ten guineas for half lengths. His work was very similar to that of the noted artist Thomas Hudson and "quite as good as Hudson". (Dictionary of 18th c Painters by Ellis Waterhouse).

Cranke's style, especially in pose and palette, is also very reminiscent of Allan Ramsay.

In 1755 he and his family moved to Urswick where he built a large new house and established a very successful portrait practice painting local landowners and their families.

Cranke taught the famous artist George Romney (1734–1802) how to paint when he was a small boy. Romney was born at Beckside, Dalton-in-Furness, which was close to the home of the Cranke family. James Cranke taught one of his sons, James Cranke Jr (1746–1826), to follow him as a portrait painter.

The success of Cranke and his son as portrait painters helped their family to become important local landowners.

James Cranke is also notable as the father of the mathematician John Cranke.

SIZE: 37 x 32 inches inc. frame.

PROVENANCE:

Collection of Professor Alastair Smart and then by descent.

(Peter Alastair Marshall Smart, art historian, born 30 April 1922, Head of Fine Art Department Nottingham University 1956-82, Professor of Fine Art 1963-82 (Emeritus 1982-92), married Marita Lawlor-Johnson (one son, one daughter), died Edinburgh 21 December 1992.

The central feature of Alastair Smart's career and work as an art historian was his involvement with the art of the great 18th-century Scottish portrait painter Allan Ramsay and who wrote the definitive works on Ramsay; one can speculate that he bought this portrait because of its similarity to a Ramsay of that period.)