Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
Lot 131*
Henry Bone R.A.(1755-1834)The Rt. Hon. Charles James Fox (1749-1806), wearing dark blue jacket with gold buttons over buff waistcoat and tied white stock
3 July 2025, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £1,024 inc. premium
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Ghislaine Howard
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Henry Bone R.A. (1755-1834)
The Rt. Hon. Charles James Fox (1749-1806), wearing dark blue jacket with gold buttons over buff waistcoat and tied white stock.
Enamel on copper, inscribed on the counter-enamel, London Dec. 1805/ Painted by Henry Bone RA, enamel painter to H.R.H. the Price of Wales after the original by John Opie R.A. Prof of Painting to the Royal Academy, ormolu mount.
Oval, 130mm (5 1/8in) high
Provenance:
Dorotheum, Vienna, 3 October, 2006, lot 323;
The Twinight Collection
Enamel on copper, inscribed on the counter-enamel, London Dec. 1805/ Painted by Henry Bone RA, enamel painter to H.R.H. the Price of Wales after the original by John Opie R.A. Prof of Painting to the Royal Academy, ormolu mount.
Oval, 130mm (5 1/8in) high
Provenance:
Dorotheum, Vienna, 3 October, 2006, lot 323;
The Twinight Collection
Footnotes
The original drawing (squared for transfer) for the present lot is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (inv. NPG D17343). It is inscribed Mr Fox - after Opie Septr. 1805. The National Portrait Gallery collection also includes drawings for further versions of the present lot dated 1818 (invs. NPG D17383 (full-length, the enamel in the Royal Collection) and NPG D17727). The original portrait by John Opie was a popular image of Fox and many version exist in oil and mezzotint.
Charles James Fox was one of the most colourful figures in eighteenth-century politics. Notorious for the excesses of his private life, he was at the same time one of the leading politicians of his generation, dominating the Whig party and polite society. As the political rival of Pitt the Younger and the intellectual rival of Edmund Burke, his views on the major issues of the day - the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, parliamentary reform - formed the character of Whiggery in his own time and for years to come. Fox's reputation has been hotly disputed. Some hail him as one of the founding fathers of Radicalism, others dismiss him as an irritating and irresponsible impediment to the statesmanship of Pitt.
