About this lot

Description

Portrait of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 6th Bart. and 2nd and last Baron Lyttelton of Frankley (1743/4-1779) half-length gesturing towards a female figure from antiquity inscribed lower left 'Thomas 2nd Lord Lyttelton / 1744-1779', and on the reverse with the name of the copyist and the date 1914 oil on canvas 75 x 62cm

Footnote: Thomas, 2nd Lord Lyttelton of Frankley married in 1772 Apphia Witts (d. 1840) and the figure to which the sitter is gesturing may be an allusion to Apphia, daughter of Philemon, a Greek comic poet who lived to be 97 and died of laughing. The present painting is a copy after the original by Cosway at Hagley Hall, Worcestershire.

Condition report: Oil on canvas which is unlined with an art supplier stamp for Winsor and Newton on the reverse. The canvas is in plane with adequate tension. The paint layer is in a good condition overall. Drying cracks have formed in the lower half of the picture which would have occurred as the paint dried. There is a thin varnish layer which has sunk and is no longer adequately saturating the paint layers. There is a thick layer of dust across the surface. The frame has a few scattered losses to the gilding.

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