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133

George Romney ( 1734-1802), British, JUDITH IRVING, (Daughter of Lieut.-Gov. Paulus Aemilius Ir...

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George Romney ( 1734-1802), British, JUDITH IRVING, (Daughter of Lieut.-Gov. Paulus Aemilius Ir...
George Romney ( 1734-1802), British
JUDITH IRVING, (Daughter of Lieut.-Gov. Paulus Aemilius Irving), Oil on canvas, circa 1783
30" x 25" - 76.2 x 63.5 cm.
Exhibited:
The Leger Galleries, London, England, Exhibition of English Eighteenth Century Conversation Pieces, Portraits and Landscapes, 28th May-27th June, 1975, Cat. No. 3, as "Mrs. Paul Aemilius Irving", 1783, illustrated in colour;
Kitchener/Waterloo Art Gallery, George Romney in Canada, 5 September 1985-20 April 1986, Cat. No. 26, illustrated p.68 and illustrated in colour, p.30;
Provenance:
The sitter's family, by descent to sale at Carlisle, 13 February 1935 (bt. Harry A. Sutch); With Leger Galleries, London; Private Collection; The Leger Galleries, London; from whom purchased by Allan and Susan Hally, Aurora, Ontario in 1976
Literature:
Country Life, CLVII, no. 4063 (15 May 1975) repr. supp. p.53;
The Leger Galleries Ltd., London, exhibition catalogue cited above and included with this lot;
Humphry Ward and William Roberts, George Romney, 1904, Vol.II, p.83 cited in Leger above;
Jennifer Watson, exhibition catalogue cited above and included with this lot;
John Beaufin Irving of Bonshaw, The Irvings, Irwines, Irvines, or Erinveines, or Any Other Spelling of the Name, 1907, pp. 81-3, 87-90, and p. 188;
Alastair M. T. Maxwell-Irving, The Irvings of Bonshaw, reprinted edition, 1983, pp 27, 32;
Allan Hally, George Romney Research Files, compiled 1976-1989
Note:
Judith Irving (born c. 1754) was the daughter of Lieut.-Gov. Paulus Aemilius Irving (1714 Dumfries, Scotland -1796). Her father, served as Major commanding the 15th Regiment of Foot at the battle of the Plains of Abraham with General Wolfe at Quebec in 1759 and for a short time administered the government of the province until the arrival of Carleton in 1766. Her brother, Sir Paulus Aemilius Irving (1751-1828), served with his regiment in the affair at Lexington, at the Battle of Bunker's Hill and in Boston during the blockade. He was present in the affair at Trois Rivieres and in the Burgoyne's army when they surrendered at Saragota in 1777. Judith married her cousin, Lieut.-Col. John Irving (1756-1808) who served with the 1st West India Regiment and with the 47th Regiment of Foot, her brother's regiment.
The Irvings in Canada descended from Judith's first cousin, Jacobus Aemilius Irving , the forbearer of the Canadian Irvings who settled at Bonshaw, on Yonge Street near Newmarket, Ontario. This branch of the Irvings married into the Jarvis family of Toronto.
This fine canvas was one of three Irving family portraits by Romney to appear on the market at the Carlisle sale in 1935 (See Leger). It was accompanied by Romney's portrait of her father, cited above (now in the Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto) and the portrait of his son, Paulus, cited above (bt. Private Collection, New York, Carlisle sale, 1935; presently untraced). The three portraits had remained together in the family collection by descent for 152 years from the time they sat for Romney in June of 1783. In the Carlisle sale and the Leger exhibition, it was presumed, since all three portraits came from the same family source, that the present lot depicted the Governor's wife, Mrs. Irving, whose name was likewise Judith. In George Romney in Canada, Jennifer Watson credits Allan Hally as the first to point out the most likely candidate is Judith, the beautiful younger daughter of Lieut. - Gov. Paulus Aemilius Irving at about 29 years of age.
See illustration
Est. $30000/40000
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