Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the 18th Century.
For some time it had been very fashionable, for adults as well as children, to be depicted as shepherds.
The lambs are a traditional symbol of innocence and virtue, in which guise they fit perfectly into Arcadia, the land from which all guilt and sin have been banished.
The dog represents loyalty and obedience, character traits considered desirable in the young.
The bird represents the transience of life, and especially youth, as it can easily fly away.
As guardian of the flock, the older brother holds the shepherd's crook and his arms are protectively around the younger boy.
The artist is an unknown provincial; although he has been influenced by the fashionable portrait painter Charles Jervas his style has a direct, rather naive quality which has great appeal. Double portraits of children are most uncommon and this one pleases in several ways .. not least in the amusing depiction of the fluffy lambs!
CHARLES JERVAS (c. 1675 - 1739) was an Irish portrait painter, translator, and art collector.
Born in County Offaly, Ireland around 1675, Jervas studied in London, England as an assistant under Sir Godfrey Kneller between 1694 and 1695.
Painting portraits of the city's intellectuals, among them such personal friends as Jonathan Swift and the poet Alexander Pope (both now in the National Portrait Gallery, London), Charles Jervas became a popular artist often referred to in the works of literary figures of the period.
Jervas gave painting lessons to Pope at his house in Cleveland Court, St James's, which Pope mentions in his poem, 'To Belinda on the Rape of the Lock', written 1713, published 1717 in 'Poems on Several Occasions'.
With his growing reputation, Jervas succeeded Kneller as Principal Portrait Painter to King George I in 1723, and continued to live in London until his death in 1739.
SIZE:50.5 x 41.75 inches inc. frame
PROVENANCE: For many years the property of a noted collector in Bath, Somerset.
With Roy Precious Fine Art.
Collection of a Fellow of a Cambridge College.
Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the 18th Century.
Roy and nadine precious: specialists in portraiture from the 16th to the 20th century. Established in 1972.
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Double Portrait of Two Boys C.1740; Follower of Charles Jervas.
