George Romney

(Beckside 1734-1802 Kendal)

Portrait of Thomas Brown, bust-length, in a grey coat, before a landscape

Footnotes

Provenance
By descent to E.A. Browne
Collection of Capt. Charles William Selwyn, R.H.G, by whose executors offered
Sale, Christie's, London, 16 June 1894, lot 114 (together with a Portrait of Mrs Browne, sold for £535 10s), where purchased by
With Agnews, London
Wallis
Collection of Theodore Uzielli, 1900
Comte Andre De Ganay
Sale, Muller, Amsterdam, 24 April 1906, lot 32
Purchased by the great grandfather of the present owners in 1906

Exhibited
London, The London Business School, London, on loan, cat. no. 202

Literature
T.H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney: A Biographical and Critical Essay, with a Catalogue Raisonné of His Works, vol. II, p. 19
A. Kidson, George Romney A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, vol. I, New Haven and London, 2015, pp. 96-7, cat. no. 161, ill.


Alex Kidson suggests a date of 1784 as Mr Brown had seven appointments with Romney between 21 February and 5 March that year, and also commissioned a portrait of his wife at the same time (for Portrait of Mrs Brown see: A. Kidson,ibid, p. 97, cat. no. 162). The present work and its pendant were sold together in 1894 but seem to have been separated shortly after this auction.

The identity of the present portrait is unclear but at some point in the 20th century it was thought to be of William Brown of Tallentire, Cumberland. Kidson suggests that a more convincing identity is a Thomas Brown of 1 Golden Square, Crutched Fryars, London, as these details were written on the endpapers of the 1784 sitter book.