About this lot

Description

William Etty, RA (British, 1787-1849)

Study of a male nude
signed or inscribed 'W Etty' (on an old label to the reverse)
oil on board
36 x 23cm

Provenance:
According to a label to the reverse (see Note) - Given by the artist to Bishop Luscombe in September 1843;
Henry Charles Johnson,
Stuart Johnson by 1916;
Joseph Fitton by 2000.

According to an old label affixed to the reverse of the board - apparently in the hand of and signed by William Etty - (and a later typed transcription of it) this study of a male nude was given by Etty "as a memento of my great esteem and gratitude for his many and varied kindnesses to me and my friends" to Bishop Matthew Henry Thornhill Luscombe (1776-1846) in September 1843 whilst Etty was on his last Continental visit in Paris where Luscombe had been chaplain at the British embassy since 1825. He was appointed to that position by George Canning when Foreign Secretary in 1824 and in that same year was consecrated to a Continental bishopric by the Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church. According to the inscription, Etty also gave Luscombe a companion painting "of a female with flowers after Reubens [sic] in the Louvre" which very possibly could have been after one of the figures of the nude females from the Medici cycle which Rubens had painted for the Luxembourg Palace and which had been transferred to the Louvre in 1817. Luscombe died unexpectedly of heart failure in Lausanne and was buried there.

Oil on board. The board is slightly bowed and does not fit its frame properly. Few scuffs and some surface dirt. Paint layer is stable. Scuffing along the edges. Areas of overpaint mainly in the top left background are well matched to the original. 48.5 x 36cm framed. 734XY Christie's stencil.

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