Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the 18th Century.
Clayton, Baron Sundon of Ardagh. G Kneller Pinxt".
This is a bust length studio version of the original three quarter length which descended through the family and was sold at Christies in 2009. It was common practice for a sitter to commission a large portrait from a fashionable artist and a smaller copy to be made by his Studio. (Image 8 shows the large portrait).
WILLIAM CLAYTON, first Baron Sundon of Ardagh (1671-1752) entered the Exchequer as Clerk of Receipts in 1688 and was Deputy Auditor of Receipts by 1714. Between 1715-1718 he was paymaster of the Kings private pension. In 1718 he was made Lord of the Treasury in Woodstock, the constituency for which he served as MP from 1716-1722. He was also a member of Parliament for St. Albans from 1722-1727, Westminster from 1727-1741, Plympton Erle from 1742-1747 and St Mawes from 1747-1751.
Clayton was elevated to the Peerage of Ireland in June 1735 as Baron Sundon of Ardagh in the County of Longford. His wife Charlotte, daughter of John Dyve (or Dive), Clerk of the Privy Council was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline. Clayton died childless in April 1752 and the peerage became extinct.
SIR GODFREY KNELLER (1646-1723) studied under Ferdinand Bol, and perhaps Rembrandt himself in the 1660s. He was in Rome and Venice between 1672 and 1675, settling in England in 1676 for life. He was soon employed at Court and became the most successful portraitist of the generation following Lely. He enjoyed the office of Principal Painter, at first jointly with John Riley (d.1691), from shortly after the accession of William and Mary in 1688 until his death. He was knighted in 1692 and became a baronet in 1715.
His work fully expresses the spirit of the English Baroque, and includes penetrating studies of many of the leading figures of Whig Society such as the famous Kit-Kat portraits now in the National Portrait Gallery (Beningborough Hall, Yorkshire), which include the likenesses of Sir John Vanbrugh, Charles 3rd Earl of Carlisle, and others.
SIZE: 37 x 32.5 inches including the frame.
PROVENANCE - By direct descent from the Clayton family of Adlington Hall, Lancashire. (The hall was demolished in the 1960s and the site is now occupied by a poultry farm.)
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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Portrait of William Clayton, 1st Baron Sundon of Ardagh; Studio of Kneller.
