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IIIF Actions
Creator:
Gawen Hamilton, ca. 1697–1737
Title:

Group portrait, probably of the Raikes family

Former Title(s):

A Group Portrait, Probably of the Raikes Family [1985, Cormack, YCBA Concise Catalogue]

The Raikes Family

Date:
between 1730 and 1732
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
26 x 36 1/8 inches (66 x 91.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Label on verso, upper left: “Painting in England, 1700-1850 | The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Richmond 20 | Artist: Gawen Hamilton | Title: ‘The Raikes Family’ | Cat. No. 214 | Medium: Oil on Canvas <Loan No.:> | Insure for: Sales Price: | Lender: Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon | Address: Upperville, Virginia | Please fill in and attach securely to work before sending to museum”; lower center: “A. 5671 | The Raikes Family | by | G. Hamilton | Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd | Old Masters & Modern Paintings | 31 Bruton Street London W1 Mayfair 2920”; lower right: “Owner | Artist Hamilton, Gawen | Title The Raikes Family | National Gallery of Art PM 700”

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.32
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1976.7.32FR
Subject Terms:
bottles | bust | chairs | child | conversation piece | costume | curtain | dinner | dog (animal) | drinking | drinking glasses | family | fan | food | fruit | gesture | gesture | girl | group portrait | interior | meal | men | pitcher | portrait | rug | sculpture | servants | silverware | tables | wine | wine cooler | women
Associated People:
Raikes, Robert (bap. 1690, d. 1757), printer and newspaper proprietor
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:271
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In a paneled room, members of a well-to-do family appear to be celebrating with a toast. At left, two servants prepare glasses and wine for the assembled sitters. A black servant polishes a goblet, while the white servant next to him uncorks a bottle. The seated man wearing black is probably Robert Raikes, a prosperous newspaper proprietor based in Gloucester. Close by was Bristol, a major seaport where many people of African descent arrived in Britain from the Americas, and where some were bartered or sold as slaves. Raikes’s "Gloucester Journal" conveyed news of Atlantic ships and trade, as well as advertisements for black servants (probably enslaved) who had escaped from their masters.

Gallery label for Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14)

Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Conversation Piece - Arthur Devis & His Contemporaries (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-10-01 - 1980-11-30) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

British Art at Yale, Apollo, v.105, April 1977, pp. 256-7, pl. III, N1 .A54 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Ching-Jung Chen, The early Georgian conversation piece : Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, 2001, pp. 313-14, cat. no. 44, Available online : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses [ORBIS]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 108-109, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Ellen G. D'Oench, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis & his contemporaries, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 68-69, cat. no. 48, NJ18 D5151 D64 OVERSIZE [ORBIS]

Ralph Edwards, Georgian Conversation Pictures, Apollo, v.105, no. 182, April 1977, p. 256-57, pl. III, N1 A54 105:2 + (YCBA) Another copy of this article may be found in a separately bound and catalogued copy of this issue located on the Mellon Shelf [call number : N5220 M552 A7 1977 + (YCBA)] [YCBA]

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, p. 42, V 2556 (YCBA) Also available online: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://britishart.yale.edu/sites/default/files/inline/Figures%20of%20Empire_booklet_FINAL.pdf [YCBA]

Christopher Maxwell, In sparkling company : reflections on glass in the 18th-century British world, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning : NY, p. 77, fig. 53, NK5143 .M46 2020+ (YCBA) [YCBA]

Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , 1,2, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 113 (v.1), no. 214, pl. 99, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Kate Retford, The Conversation Piece Making Modern Art in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2017, p. 290, fig. 215, ND1314.4 .R48 2017 (LC) Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Slavery and Portraiture in 18th-century Atlantic Britain, [Website] , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2015, Available online https://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/ [Website]

The Burlington Magazine, 162, The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd., London, 1948-, no. 3, N1 B87 Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]


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