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Thomas Dawson, Viscount Cremorne
Mather Brownc. 1788
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: Thomas Dawson, Viscount Cremorne
- Creator: Mather Brown
- Date Created: c. 1788
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 75.2 x 63.3 cm (29 5/8 x 24 15/16 in.) framed: 88.9 x 76.8 x 3.5 cm (35 x 30 1/4 x 1 3/8 in.)
- Provenance: Possibly owned by the sitter's widow, Philadelphia Hannah Freame, Viscountess Cremorne [1740/1741-1826], London[1] and left to her principal heir, Granville Penn [1761-1844], Pennsylvania Castle, Isle of Portland, Dorset, England.[2] Bought with the contents of Pennsylvania Castle by J. Meyrick Head, 1887; sold in his sale (Christie, Manson and Woods, London, 10 July 1916, no. 159); purchased by "Martin";[3] (Robinson & Farr, Philadelphia, 1916); sold 12 February 1917 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1947 to NGA. [1] She was the granddaughter of William Penn; see _Genealogies of Pennsylvania Families from the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine_, 2 (Baltimore, 1982): 564-565. [2] Pennsylvania Castle was built by Viscountess Cremorne's cousin John Penn (1760-1834) after he became governor of the Isle of Portland in 1805. He left it to his brother Granville Penn; see _Genealogies of Pennsylvania Families from the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine_ 2: 568-569, 625-626, and Nicholas B. Wainwright, "The Penn Collection," _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_ 87, no. 4 (October 1963): 393-419. The last family owner of the castle and its contents was Stewart Forbes, a cousin. [3] _Catalogue of Family Portraits, Books, Autographs, Manuscripts, etc. Relating to William Penn and His Descendants and the Early History of Pennsylvania: The Property of J. Meyrick Head, Esq. Deceased; Late of Pennsylvania Castle, Portland_ (London, 1916), 30, as by Mather Brown. The buyer, noted as "Martin" in the copy of the catalogue at the Getty Library, Los Angeles, may be Sir Alec Martin of Christie's, according to the staff of the Getty Provenance Index. Charles Henry Hart, in a letter of 26 February 1917 to Thomas B. Clarke, identified Martin as "one of the Christie's and often buys pictures that he puts into Farr's hands for sale" (in NGA curatorial files). [4] The name of the seller and the date of purchase are according to a 1928 Clarke exhibition catalogue in the NGA Library that is annotated with information from the files of M. Knoedler & Co., New York (copy in NGA curatorial files). A letter from Robinson & Farr, Philadelphia, dated 21 February 1917, to Thomas B. Clarke says that the firm owned the painting with "an Englishman" and that they purchased the painting in London in the summer of 1916 (in NGA curatorial files).
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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