Charles Jervas
, Irish, c.1675-1739
Title
Portrait of the Honourable Jane Seymour Conway (c.1711-1749)Datec.1735
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
92 x 168 cm
Credit LinePurchased, 1974
Object numberNGI.4118
DescriptionThe sitter of this portrait was the fifth daughter of Baron Conway. She is shown full lenght, reclining in front of a wide landscape with a group of large trees on the left. She is wearing a blue wrapping gown and white chemise with red-and-white satin shoes. Although her pose is one traditionally used in art to convey melancholy, her expression, with its faint smile, is more evocative of seduction than of sorrow. It is thought that the canvas may originally have been intended for an overdoor. The broad handling of colour in large brush strokes suggests that the portrait was not intended to be viewed at close quarters.Jervas went to London in c.1694. He stayed there for at least a year, studying painting with Godfrey Kneller, one of the leading portrait painters of the day. From there he went to Italy, returning to London around 1708, where he enjoyed a successful career as a portraitist. During several visits to Ireland he carried out a number of portrait commissions. He is known to have painted at least 10 portraits of Jonathan Swift. After Kneller's death in 1723, Jervas was appointed principal painter to King George I, a position he retained under George II.
(National Gallery of Ireland: Essential Guide, 2008)
ProvenanceBy descent from the Marquess of Hertford; Christie's, 20 May 1938, lot 16; Sotheby's, 27 June 1973, lot 72; purchased, Private Collection, London, 1974 Label TextJane Seymour Conway was the second child of Francis Seymour Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Ragley and later Baron Conway of Killmultagh, Co. Antrim by his second wife, also Jane Seymour Conway (d.1715). The pose she assumes in earlier paintings have conveyed melancholy or grave contemplation, but by the 1730s was altogether less formal. Jervas’s portraits of reclining female sitters may have been inspired by the work of Jervas’s teacher Godfrey Kneller. When Kneller died in 1723, Jervas replaced him as principal painter to King George I, a position he retained under George II.