Portrait of a Group of Gentleman, with the Artist

Francis Hayman, 1707/8–1776, British, Portrait of a Group of Gentleman, with the Artist, between 1745 and 1748

Creator:: Francis Hayman, 1707/8–1776
Title:: Portrait of a Group of Gentleman, with the Artist
Former Title(s):: Lord Chesterfield and his friends [1963, Painting in England 1700-1850, collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon, exhibition catalogue]
Date:: between 1745 and 1748
Medium:: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:: 44 x 56 inches (111.8 x 142.2 cm)
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1981.25.325
Classification:: Paintings
Collection:: Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:: B1981.25.325FR
Subject Terms:: artist | carpets | chairs | conversation piece | drawing | drinking | drinking glasses | food | food | goblets | interior | jug | mantels | men | oval | painting (visual work) | portrait | screen | self-portrait | sitting | sketchbook | sketching | standing | table | turning | wigs | wine
Associated People:: Hayman, Francis (1707/8–1776), painter, engraver, and book illustrator
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:817
Export:: XML
IIIF Manifest:: JSON

The identity of these men in a fashionable interior has been lost, all except for the figure sketching from the floor. That is a self-portrait of Francis Hayman, whose bust by Roubiliac is shown nearby. These men are clearly of the highest social rank and exude all the trappings of prosperity: a Persian carpet, a marble mantelpiece with a painted landscape and ormolu ornament in the French taste, a Chinoiserie screen, the latest table and chairs of mahogany imported from South America, a silver wine jug, and clothes embroidered with silver and gold thread. Britain's wealth by this date was fueled by booming exports to colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and through the profits of the deplorable transportation of enslaved Africans to labor in plantations in those colonies. Hayman's picture is a powerful reminder that civilization and barbarism went hand in hand in eighteenth-century Britain.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016

Artists' Portraits (Yale Center for British Art, 2002-02-06 - 2002-03-24) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Francis Hayman (Kenwood House, 1987-06-24 - 1987-09-30) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Francis Hayman (Yale Center for British Art, 1987-04-01 - 1987-05-31) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Pursuit of Happiness - A View of Life in Georgian England (Yale Center for British Art, 1977-04-19 - 1977-09-18) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Brian Allen, Francis Hayman, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987, pp. 98-9, 172, no. 19, NJ18 H3324 A54 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Art Treasures Exhibition (Manchester, England), Catalogue of the art treasures of the United kingdom., Bradbury and Evans, London, 1857, p. 78, no. 27, N5056 M35 M25 1857 (YCBA) [YCBA]

John Baskett, Painting in England: 1700-1850: the Collection of English paintings formed by Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon : on Exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, until August 18th, , Connoisseur, Vol. 153, London, June 1963, pp. 102, 03, N1 C75 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Catalogue of the art treasures of the United Kingdom : collected at Manchester in 1857., Bradbury and Evans, London, p. 78, no. 27, N5056 .M35 M25 1857 (YCBA) Also available in Hathitrust [YCBA]

Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd., Catalogue of ancient and modern pictures and drawings, Christie's, London, July 20, 1956, p. 19, lot no. 113, X348 C46.1 1956/7/20 (MUDD) [ORBIS]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, p. 110-111, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Catherine M. Gordon, British paintings Hogarth to Turner, Frederick Warne, London, 1981, p. 29, ND466 G67 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Kenwood House, Paintings, drawings, and prints by Francis Hayman, R.A., 1708-1776 , May-September 1960, p. 15, no. 15a, NJ18 H3324 I84 1960A (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. 225, no. 217, pl. 103, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Elizabeth A. Pergam, The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, entrepreneurs, connoisseurs and the public , Ashgate Publishing, Surrey, UK, England Burlington, VT, 2011, p. 311, No. 27 in AT Exh, N5056 M35 P47 2011 (YCBA) [YCBA]

J. H. Plumb, The pursuit of happiness : a view of life in Georgian England : an exhibition selected from the Paul Mellon collection, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1977, pp. 56, 115, no. 115, N6766 Y34 1977 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Kate Retford, The Conversation Piece Making Modern Art in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2017, p. 88, fig. 71, ND1314.4 .R48 2017 (LC) Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Sotheby's sale catalogue : Important pictures by old masters of the Italian, Dutch & French schools : 23 July 1924, Sotheby's, July 23, 1924, p. 16, lot 85, Film B12 (YCBA) [YCBA]

The Companion to a Walk Through the Art Exhibition of Paintings and Engravings at Old Trafford Palace, A. Ireland and Co., Manchester : UK, 1857, p. 39, no. 27, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t10p4pj8s&view=1up&seq=1 [Website]

Alice Winchester, English Conversation Pieces from the Mellon Collection, Antiques, vol. 83, April 1963, p. 448, NK1125 A3 v. 83 OVERSIZE (HAAS) [ORBIS]

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