A PAIR OF 18TH CENTURY PORTRAITS OF MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS - BY THOMAS HUDSON (1701-1779)

A fine and richly pair of portraits showing Mr and Mrs Roberts by the celebrated 18th century English portrait artist Thomas Hudson.

Mr Roberts is depicted half length in a velvet jacket and waistcoat, and with his confident gaze, he is every inch the wealthy and self assured 18th century gentleman.With her pastel silk clothing with its bows and ruffles (the height of rococo fashion) Mrs Roberts is makes a very elegant companion. This is a marriage a-la-mode!

These portraits are decorative examples of Thomas Hudson's work in oils and they provide an enchanting snapshot of the middle classes of mid-Georgian England.

Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) During the 1740’s Hudson became one of Britain’s leading portrait painters. He had trained as a youth with his father-in-law the theorist and painter Jonathan Richardson, whose bold Baroque portraiture he absorbed and built upon. The earliest records of his work date to the late 1720s, where the artist began splitting his time between London and the West Country.

Like many painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, he was often drawn to Bath to paint the wealthy sitters this spa town attracted. His studio in London became a hive of activity of wealthy patrons and aspiring pupils. Amongst his pupils were Joshua Reynolds, Joseph Wright of Derby and John Hamilton Mortimer. Hudson threw in his lot with other aspiring artists of the British School, and regularly met with the likes of Hogarth, Hayman, Ramsay and Rysbrack at the Old Slaughter’s Coffee House in St Martin’s Lane. He collaborated with the painter Joseph van Aken, who painted the drapery of many of his finest works. This collaboration shows how great the demand for the artist’s brush had become.

Hudson’s success as a portraitist attracted many pupils who wished to study with him. Among them were such figures as Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97), who was in Hudson’s studio from 1751-3 and 1756-7, and Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), who worked for Hudson from 1740-43. The success of this latter, who did so much to transform eighteenth-century British portraiture, however, turned the pupil into a powerful rival. Such was Reynolds’s success that by the 1760s Hudson’s style looked old-fashioned and he struggled to find new commissions. Hudson retired to his villa in Twickenham, where he died in 1770.

These fine portraits are in an excellent state of conservation and are ready to hang and enjoy in their likely original hand carved and gilded 18th century frames, which are in themselves a work of art.

Higher resolution images on request.

Worldwide shipping available.

Each Portrait:

Canvas: 25" x 30" / 64cm x 76.5cm.

Frame: 37.5" x 32" / 75cm x 81.5cm.

Price: £6250 the pair.