Lord Archibald Hamilton (1770 - 1827)
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An oval portrait of a young Archibald Hamilton (1769-1827), painted on a rectangular canvas. The sitter is shown half-length turned to the left. He has long wavy hair to his shoulders. He is wearing a blue silk jacket with slashed sleeves, a white shirt, and a lace collar in the style known as Vandyke dress. The background is plain brown.
Thomas Gainsborough must have been proud of his portrait of Archibald Hamilton as he signed it, which was unusual for the artist. Archibald, the younger son of the 9th Duke of Hamilton, appears in Vandyke dress. The portrait of his older brother, also by Gainsborough, is also at Waddesdon (acc. no. 2557).
Gainsborough painted this portrait at the height of his popularity as a portrait painter in the city of London, where he had moved in 1774. The portrait and its pendant of Alexander, both hanging in the Morning Room, were commissioned by the sitter's father, the 9th Duke of Hamilton, who was a Scottish aristocrat and M.P. for Lanarkshire from 1769-1772. Archibald was also M.P. for Lanarkshire from 1802 to 1827. He never married.
Archibald wears fancy dress known as a 'Vandyke' habit, after the 17th century Flemish portraitist Anthony van Dyck, whom Gainsborough greatly admired. When the two portraits were exhibited by Gainsborough in his studio at Schomberg House in Pall Mall, London in 1786, contemporaries commented that although Alexander was shown in historical dress, Archibald was shown in more modern clothes. This reflects the fact that it was fashionable for young men to wear 'Vandyke' style clothes at this time for portraits and masquerades. The light blue colour and luxurious satin also contrast Archibald's dress to the more severe costume worn by his older brother, the heir, perhaps befitting their different stations in the Hamilton family.
The two portraits stayed in the Hamilton family, passing through Archibald's sister, Charlotte, into the family of the Duke of Somerset, into which she married. Ferdinand purchased the painting from the Dukes of Somerset via a dealer in 1891, the year the Morning Room was completed. He paid the vast sum of £4,410 for the painting, nearly four times that paid for the companion painting of Alexander, indicating the popularity of such portraits in the late 19th century. The blue costume relates the painting to Gainsborough's immensely popular 'The Blue Boy' (Huntington) an important model for 'The Pink Boy' (acc. no. 2508) also owned by Ferdinand de Rothschild.
Phillippa Plock, 2011
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
632 x 762
Signature & date
signed, centre left: T. Gainsborough
Provenance
- Commissioned by the sitter's father Archibald, 9th Duke of Hamilton (b.1740, d.1819); by descent to his daughter, the sitter's sister, Charlotte Hamilton, Duchess of Somerset (b.1772, d.1827); by descent to Edward Adolphus Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset (b.1805, d.1885) of Stover Lodge, Cornwall; bought by Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd from Duke of Somerset sale, from Stover Lodge, 28 June 1890, lot no. 24; bought from Agnew's by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898) 7 May 1891; inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1957.
Exhibition history
- Gainsborough's Private Exhibition, London: Schomberg House, 1786
- Royal Academy Exhibition, London, 1891, no. 26, lent by William Agnew
- 'The Four Georges', London: 25 Park Lane, 1931, no. 51, lent by James A. de Rothschild
Collection
- Waddesdon (National Trust)
- Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957
Bibliography
- William T. Whitley; Thomas Gainsborough; London; Smith, Elder; 1915; p. 266
- Ellis Waterhouse; Gainsborough; London; Edward Hulton Limited; 1958; p. 72, no. 339
- Ellis Waterhouse, The English Pictures at Waddesdon Manor, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 54, August 1959, 49-56; p. 55
- Ellis Waterhouse, Anthony Blunt; Paintings: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; Fribourg; Office du Livre, The National Trust; 1967; pp. 40-43, cat. no. 7
- Hugh Belsey; Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies After Old Masters (Volume 1 and 2); 1-2; The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press; 2019; cat. 436, vol. I, pp. 434-435, ill.
- Julia Abel Smith; Forbidden Wife - The Life and Trials of Lady Augusta Murray; Gloucestershire; The History Press; 2020; p.180
Subject person
- Lord Archibald Hamilton, Sitter
- Archibald, 9th Duke of Hamilton, Patron
- Anthony van Dyck, Alluded to in image