An engaging portrait sketch by the renowned George Romney, which has been in the same family collection since it was painted, it to be sold in Tennants Auctioneers' British, European and Sporting Art Sale on 13th July, offered with an estimate of £20,000-30,000 (plus buyer's premium).
The sketch depicts Caesar Hawkins, whose father Charles was Serjeant Surgeon to King George III, and is thought to have been executed in preparation for a full-length portrait of Caesar, his sister Louisa Anne, and their mother Emma Hawkins (née Adair), which was once in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts before being sold at Christie's in 2006. The final painting was a long time in the planning, with numerous changes to the composition on route: according to Romney's meticulous studio records, Mrs Hawkins' first sitting was in 1776, with Caesar having two sittings in the Summer of the same year and younger sister Louisa Anne sitting in 1778. It is likely the present sketch was executed in 1776 and the turned-head pose was not used in the finished work. Caesar was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and was a Captain in the 8th Light Dragoons before his death in 1806.
However, according to family lore, Mrs Georgina Yorke, who was the daughter of the Hawkins' third child, Charles, who was born in 1778 and through whose family the sketch was handed down, recounted that the family portrait was originally to include just Caesar and Louisa Anne, and that the addition of Mrs Hawkins was a later decision. Whilst this does not necessarily correspond with the order of appointments recorded by Romney, it does introduce the possibility that it might be a fragment from a discarded version of the family portrait. According to Mrs Yorke:
"It was cut out of the picture [Romney] began of my aunt and of my uncle (i.e. the two Hawkins children in the group portrait); but my grandfather was persuaded to have his wife's portrait also added to that of the children. Romney then cut out the sketch of my uncle from the first canvas and gave it to my grandmother, saying that he thought it was one of the best turned heads he had ever done".
George Romney (1734-1802) was one of the most celebrated portrait painters of his age, and when this sketch was painted, he was freshly back from a year and a half painting and studying the Old Masters in Italy. Born near Dalton-in-Furness, Romney served a brief apprenticeship with Charles Steele in Kendal before setting up his own studio in the same town. His reputation as a portrait painter grew rapidly, and in 1762 he left his wife and children in the North and moved to London. Over the next decade he became a much in demand portraitist and was finally in a position to take his own Grand Tour relatively late in his artistic career. Having been inspired by the likes of Titian, his technique saw a subtle transformation on his return; whilst still painting in the Neo-Classical style with simple forms, flowing contours and lines and a deft eye for bold colour, his work became more assured, engaging and spontaneous, and his palette lightened and brightened. Romney's depictions of the Hawkins family mark the beginning of his mature style. Certainly, the brilliance of Romney's brushwork is evident in the present charming study, which perfectly embodies the innocence and youth of the sitter.
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