Sir Martin Archer Shee, P.R.A. (Irish/British, 1769-1850), "Master George Finch (1794-1870)", c. 1805, oil on canvas, unsigned, titled lower right, 42 5/8 in. x 30 3/4 in., in the very good original carved, gessoed, and giltwood frame.
PLEASE NOTE: Provenance: With the collector, Wayne Francis Palmer (1895-1983), Springlake Plantation, Mobile, AL; thence by descent in the Palmer Family. Note: Master Finch was the illegitimate son of the ninth Earl of Winchilsea (4 November 1752-2 August 1826), who was a lieutenant colonel with the British forces during the American Revolutionary War, and became a celebrated batsman and patron of cricket; he never married. Young George is shown here just preceding or during his years at Harrow School, after which he went up to Cambridge. He became successively a Member of Parliament for Lymington (1820-21), Stamford (1832-37), and Rutland (1846-47); on his father's death he inherited the family estates, including Burley House, Rutland. By his second wife, Lady Louisa Somerset (daughter of the sixth Duke of Beaufort), he had a son, George Henry Finch (1835-1907). The latter published a guide to Burley House, which however lists only one portrait of our sitter, as an adult, "presented to him by his tenants" who chose Samuel Laurence of London (1812-1884) to draw the likeness. From this we can infer that this painting was separated from the family collection by the middle of the 19th century, though it does bear a contemporaneous "butler's inscription," as is typical of paintings exhibited in the picture galleries of the great English country houses (his father's portrait from Burley does, as well). Martin Archer Shee was an exact contemporary of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), who preceded him from 1820 to 1830 as President of the Royal Academy. Shee left his native Dublin in 1788, and was introduced in that year to Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the first President of the R. A. (1768). Shee was made an Associate in 1798, and an Academician in 1800. He married and moved into th house in Cavendish Square vacated at the death of George Romney, setting himself up as Romney's successor (though he had early competition from his older contemporaries Hoppner and Raeburn, and especially Lawrence). This exceptional portrait is of the large size that Shee reserved for his best three-quarter-length figures--or seated full figures--and is remarkably precocious in its inspired composition. The winsome schoolboy is shown seated on a rock, as it were in one of the glens of Burley Park, with a glint of water below, and one of the typical hills of Rutland in the distance; Shee used this identical composition (and a slight modification of this same costume) some 15 years later, in his smaller painting of his own son William, in c. 1820 (Royal Academy Collection). This picture brilliantly reflects the crisp and confident delineation of Shee's best early manner; its autumnal foliage naturally sets off the variegated browns of the sitter's hair and draperies, resulting in an image that may well be ranked as one of the painter's quintessential masterpieces.