John Vanderbank (9 September 1694 – 23 December 1739)Waterhouse, Ellis. ''Painting in Britain 1530–1790'' (Penguin Books, 1957). was a leading English

portrait painter Portrait Painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and pr ...

who enjoyed a high reputation during the last decade of King George I's reign and remained in high fashion in the first decade of King George II's reign.

George Vertue George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Life Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, ...

's opinion was that only intemperance and extravagance prevented Vanderbank from being the greatest portraitist of his generation, his lifestyle bringing him into repeated financial difficulties and leading to an early death at the age of only 45. 3rddukeofmarlborough

Vanderbank - Grace Carteret, Countess of Dysart

John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - George I (1660-1727) - RCIN 404412 - Royal Collection

Vanderbank - Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart

Portrait of Peter Vanderbank by Godfrey Kneller

Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban from NPG (2)

Anastasia Robinson seated at the harpsichord John Faber the Younger 1727 after John Vanderbank 1723

John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - John Bourchier (1710–1759) - 1191213 - National Trust

John Michael Rysbrack by John Vanderbank

Early life

Vanderbank was born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 9 September 1694 into an artistic family, the eldest son of Sarah and John Vanderbank Snr, a naturalised

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

immigrant from Paris and, since 1679, well-to-do proprietor of the Soho Tapestry Manufactory and Yeoman Arras-maker to the Great Wardrobe, supplying the royal family with tapestries from his premises in Great Queen Street,

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

. John Vanderbank senior was the leading tapestry weaver in England throughout his life and by the introduction of the lighter and less formal style, now referred to as chinoiserie, he exercised a powerful influence on the style of the Soho weavers. John Vanderbank first studied composition and painting under his father and then the painter

Jonathan Richardson Jonathan Richardson (12 January 1667 – 28 May 1745), sometimes called "the Elder" to distinguish him from his son (Jonathan Richardson the Younger), was an English artist, collector of drawings and writer on art, working almost entirely as a ...

, before becoming one of Sir

Godfrey Kneller Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born Gottfried Kniller; 8 August 1646 – 19 October 1723), was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to English and British monarchs from ...

's earliest pupils in 1711 at his art academy in Great Queen Street, neighbouring his father's tapestry workshop. After Sir

James Thornhill Sir James Thornhill (25 July 1675 or 1676 – 4 May 1734) was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. He was responsible for some large-scale schemes of murals, including the "Painted Hall" at the Ro ...

took over from Kneller in 1718, Vanderbank continued his studies there for two years before founding an academy of his own in 1720. Vanderbank's younger brother, Moses Vanderbank, was also an artist and draughtsman, although besides a family group depicting three children (1733), three altarpieces in the 12th century church at Adel near Leeds, and a portrait of a young child with a lamb (1743), his painted works are exceptionally rare. He succeeded his father to the post of Yeoman Arras-maker to the Crown in 1727. The family's relationship to the leading late 17th century painter and engraver Peter Vanderbank is uncertain although the Parisian origins of both, the similarity of profession, the facial similarities of Kneller's chalk portrait of Peter Vanderbank and John Vanderbank's self-portrait drawing, and John Vanderbank senior's ownership of land in Hertfordshire where Peter Vanderbank married and spent his final years are suggestive.Survey of London: Volumes 33 and 34, St Anne Soho, London County Council, London, 1966, Appendix 1: The Soho Tapestry Makers, pages 515-520

Career

Portrait painter

Vanderbank worked chiefly as a portraitist, also painting some allegorical subjects, and as an illustrator. He began his portrait practice in 1719 with a large equestrian portrait of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, developing a free, painterly style, his faces admirably drawn with what Vertue describes as ‘greatness of pencilling, spirit and composition’, and partly derived from his admiration for Rubens and Van Dyck, many of whose works he had studiously copied. His early portraits continued the vigour and grand style of Kneller but with a more vital and energetic drawing than his contemporaries. He used a bold pigmentation in the flesh where pink tones are painted thinly over the cooler greys of the ground layer to suggest glowing skin, the technique of colori cangianti derived from Rubens who was himself inspired by the artists of the seicento. Equally distinctive is the way in which mid-tones are represented by unpainted areas of grey-green primer and the placing of pure red pigments for highlights.

Vanderbank's academy

In 1720, after a period of infighting, Thornhill closed Kneller's Academy and opened a new academy of his own, conducting free life-drawing classes from a room he added to his own house in James Street,

. In October of the same year a faction led by John Vanderbank, who on his father's death in 1717 had received a legacy of £500, and the elderly Louis Chéron established an academy which they advertised as 'The Academy for the Improvement of Painters and Sculptors by drawing from the Naked' at premises in St Martin's Lane. Vanderbank's Academy, as it became known, proved popular and its list of subscribers is a roll call of the next generation of leading artists. Conversely Thornhill had little success in finding subscribers, despite making no charge, and Hogarth, Thornhill's son-in-law, attributed its failure at least in part to the competition from Vanderbank's Academy. In 1724 it was discovered that the academy treasurer had embezzled the subscription funds and this, coupled with Vanderbank's growing debt problems, and perhaps Chéron's old age and illness (he died in May of the following year), led to the closure of the academy that summer. Vanderbank's Academy was shortlived but had an important influence on the development of English art, not least by furthering the introduction in England of life drawing classes for promising students such as

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...

Joseph Highmore Joseph Highmore (13 June 1692 – 3 March 1780) was an England, English painter of Portrait painting, portraits, conversation pieces and History painting, history subjects, illustrator and author. After retiring from his career as a painter ...

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, bu ...

, John Faber, John Ellys and James Seymour. Moreover in leading the academy Vanderbank was at the centre of an influential artistic hub enjoying the patronage of the wealthiest aristocrats, largely responsible for shaping the taste and cultural life of England in the 1720s and 1730s, encompassing art, architecture, music and the landscape. For example when William Kent joined Vanderbank's Academy he was already painting interiors at

Cannons A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder dur ...

for the Duke of Chandos, the princely palace designed by James Gibbs whom Vanderbank had known since Kneller's Academy, and in 1722 Vanderbank painted a portrait of the Duke of Chandos which has in the background the great basin lake created at Cannons (of which

Nicholas Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principa ...

said "I cannot but own that the water at Cannon's... is the main beauty of that situation and it cost him dear", and in 1727 Hogarth, probably on Vanderbank's recommendation, was invited to paint a cartoon of ''The Element of the Earth'' for Joshua Morris, the tapestry maker of Great Queen Street, for some hangings for Cannons, so initiating Hogarth's painting career. The Duke of Chandos had installed Handel as musician in residence at Cannons, where he composed the Chandos Anthems and his first oratorios, and in 1719 was one of the principal founding subscribers to the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke ...

to ensure a steady supply of baroque opera under Handel's aegis. Vanderbank was a frequent concert goer, drawing a caricature of Senesino, Cuzzoni and Berenstadt in a scene from Handel's Flavio in 1723, which was anonymously etched and engraved, and in the same year painting the portrait of the leading soprano, and later contralto, Anastasia Robinson, Countess of Peterborough, of which Faber produced a popular mezzotint in 1727. Vanderbank's extravagant habits saw him repeatedly in financial difficulties between 1724 and 1729, when his debts were cleared by his brother Moses. From 1729 John Vanderbank occupied a house in Holles Street, Cavendish Square, rent-free thanks to the generous patronage of Lord Carteret who, however, appropriated the contents of his studio after his death. According to Vertue, there Vanderbank lived ‘’ and so in the 1730s Vanderbank's career returned to the ascendant, Vertue noting that he had 'a great run of business painting persons of quality and distinction'.

Works

Vanderbank's portraits of royalty, leading aristocrats and eminent persons of his day are to be found in every major art gallery around the world including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC,

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

The Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...

, The Courtauld Gallery, the

Dulwich Picture Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London, which opened to the public in 1817. It was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane using an innovative and influential method of illumination. Dulwich is the oldest pub ...

, and the National Portrait Gallery. A great many of Vanderbank's portraits were engraved in mezzotint by John Faber,

George White George White may refer to: Politicians * George White (died 1584) (c. 1530–1584), MP for Liverpool * George White (Liberal politician) (1840–1912), British Liberal member of parliament, 1900–1912 * George E. White (politician) (1848–1935), ...

and others, and were highly popular at the time. Vanderbank's most characterful and distinguished portraits are generally of the 1720s including the great patron of Handel and of the arts the Duke of Chandos (1722), the two portraits of

Sir Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the g ...

(1725 and 1726), the painter George Lambert (untraced but engraved by Faber in 1727), the eccentric Newmarket trainer Tregonwell Frampton (c.1725), the poet James Thomson (1726), and the sculptor

John Michael Rysbrack Johannes Michel or John Michael Rysbrack, original name Jan Michiel Rijsbrack, often referred to simply as Michael Rysbrack (24 June 1694 – 8 January 1770), was an 18th-century Flemish sculptor, who spent most of his career in England where h ...

(c.1728).

Ellis Waterhouse Sir Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse (16 February 1905 – 7 September 1985) was an English art historian and museum director who specialised in Roman baroque and English painting. He was Director of the National Galleries of Scotland (1949–52) a ...

considered that Vanderbank's masterpiece was the large full-length of Queen Caroline (1736). Vanderbank painted three allegorical subjects incorporating an equestrian portrait of George I for the decoration of the staircase at 11 Bedford Row, London, and contributed The Apotheosis, or, Death of the King (1727) to the series of ten paintings by various artists, including Chéron and Pieter Angelis, engraved in 1728 and advertised by John Bowles as Ten Prints of the Reign of King Charles the First. By contrast, some of Vanderbank's later portraits of ‘persons of Quality’, male or female, are technically well painted but can betray a lack of rapport with his sitters and a tendency to rely on stock poses sometimes directly derived from Van Dyck. Vertue noted that, like many portraitists of the period, Vanderbank sometimes used the services of the

drapery painter A drapery painter refers to a specialist painter commissioned to complete the dress, costumes and other accessories worn by the subjects of portrait paintings. They were employed by portrait painters with a large workshop in 18th century England.

Joseph Van Aken from the mid 1730s. As a draughtsman and illustrator, Vanderbank demonstrates a verve and originality not always found in his portraiture. A series of pen, ink, and wash drawings of horses and riders being trained in the exercises of haute école, drawn in the early 1720s when the artist ‘was himself a Disciple in our Riding-Schools’ was engraved and published by Joseph Sympson in 1729 as 'Twenty Five Actions of the Manage Horse'. The drawings were widely copied and pirated. In 1723 Vanderbank was commissioned by the publishers J and R Tonson to illustrate Don Quixote, in the original Spanish and this eventually appeared as a lavish four-volume quarto edition in 1738 with sixty-eight engraved plates after Vanderbank. This project, for which Vanderbank's initial designs were preferred over Hogarth's, appears to have preoccupied Vanderbank, perhaps almost empathetically, for the remainder of his life, resulting in three sets of drawings; first sketched then finished for the engraver's use, then drawn afresh, elaborated, and fully finished, as well as a series of some thirty-five small freely painted oil panels. Vanderbank also illustrated or designed frontispieces for various volumes of plays. Vanderbank's only known apprentice was John Robinson (1715-1745) whom he took on for five years for a premium of £157 10s on 23 July 1737. Robinson attained some success as a portrait-painter in his short life. Having married a wife with a fortune, he purchased the late

Charles Jervas Charles Jervas (also Jarvis and Jervis; c. 1675 – 2 November 1739) was an Irish portrait painter, translator, and art collector of the early 18th century. Early life Born in Shinrone, County Offaly, Ireland around 1675, the son of John J ...

's house in Cleveland Court, Bath, and thus inherited a fashionable practice.

Character

From Vertue we know that Vanderbank was immensely talented, 'so bold and free was his pencil and so masterly his drawing', and also that Vanderbank might have made a greater figure than almost any painter England had produced had he not been so careless and extravagant; 'only intemperance prevented Vanderbank from being the greatest portraitist of his generation'. Vertue notes that Vanderbank ‘livd very extravagantly a mistres drinking & country house a purpose for her’. This extravagance led him into debt and in 1724 Vanderbank fled to France briefly to avoid imprisonment by his creditors, returning to enter 'the liberties of the Fleet', mansion houses near the Fleet prison in which privileged prisoners could enjoy relative comfort in return for payment. In 1727 Vanderbank's mother died, having prudently left her assets out of reach of John's creditors to her younger son Moses, and in 1729 Moses sold a share in the family tapestry business to the painter John Ellys to settle John Vanderbank's debts. Vanderbank then accepted a free residence in Lord Carteret's house in Holles Street, neighbouring the Duke of Chandos's house in

Cavendish Square Cavendish Square is a public garden square in Marylebone in the West End of London. It has a double-helix underground commercial car park. Its northern road forms ends of four streets: of Wigmore Street that runs to Portman Square in the much ...

, London. That Vanderbank succeeded in remaining in the first rank of portraitists in the 1720s and again in the 1730s in spite of his intemperance, sometimes producing outstanding works of art, testifies to the accuracy of Vertue's opinion.

Personal life

On 12 July 1723 Vanderbank married the actress Ann Hardaker (b 1703) at St Mary's Church, Islington, the daughter of William Hardaker and Sibella (née Mountjoy) of

Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. The area has its ro ...

, London. She was deemed by Vertue to be ‘a Vain empty wooman’ though, judging by the portrait miniature by Christian Friedrich Zincke and Faber's mezzotint from her portrait by her husband, she was certainly strikingly attractive. The Hardakers had links to the West Riding of Yorkshire where Vanderbank's older sister Elizabeth had married John Hotham in 1715. This northern connection might have been the source of Moses Vanderbank's commission in Leeds. Vertue noted that Vanderbank ‘left no children behind him by this wooman’ and indeed none has ever been traced from the marriage. Vanderbank died of consumption (

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...

) in Holles Street on 23 December 1739 aged 45 and was buried in

St Marylebone Parish Church St Marylebone Parish Church is an Anglican church on the Marylebone Road in London. It was built to the designs of Thomas Hardwick in 1813–17. The present site is the third used by the parish for its church. The first was further south, near Ox ...

, Westminster. In his will, dated 19 December 1739 and made four days before he died, he leaves his entire estate "unto my dear wife". Anne Vanderbank died in 1750 and was buried at St George Hanover SquareCity of Westminster Archives Centre; London, England; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers; Reference: STC/PR/5/22.

Other paintings

File:Kneller Isaac Newton.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - James Thomson (1700–1748), Poet - PG 642 - National Galleries of Scotland.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - The Honourable Anne Howard (d.1775), Lady Yonge - 653164 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - A Youth of the Lee Family, Probably William Lee of Totteridge Park - T03539 - Tate.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Philip Dormer Stanhope (1694–1773), 4th Earl of Chesterfield, KG, in Garter Robes - 1175945 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Francis North (1704–1790), 1st Earl of Guilford, in Earl's Robes - 1175942 - National Trust.jpg File:Vanderbank, John - Portrait of a Woman in White - Google Art Project.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Sir John Trevelyan (c.1670–1755), 2nd Bt - 726078 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - The Honourable Mary Howard (1710–1740), Mrs George Venables-Vernon - 653153 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Sir William Yonge (c.1693–1755), 4th Bt, KB - 653157 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Jane Cornwallis (1703–1760), Mrs Bowater Vernon - 414268 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Algernon Seymour (1684–1750), Earl of Hertford, Later 7th Duke of Somerset - 485111 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Charles Talbot (1685–1737), 1st Baron Talbot of Hensol, as Lord High Chancellor - 869197 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Mary Keck (d.1733), Mrs Thomas Vernon - 414226 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Bowater Vernon (1683–1735) - 414267 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Catherine Collingwood (d.1761), Lady (Robert) Throckmorton - 135567 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Don Quixote Addressing the Goatherds - T00937 - Tate.jpg File:John Vanderbank - A Scene from Don Quixote (Vol.II, Ch.XXIII) - Google Art Project.jpg File:John Vanderbank - A Young Gentleman Riding a Schooled Horse - Google Art Project.jpg File:An Exercise in Haute Ecole- the Passage to the Left along a Wall, after Vanderbank - Google Art Project.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Francis Luttrell of Venn (1709–1732) (^) - 726093 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Thomas Strickland (1682–1736), Bishop of Namur - 998463 - National Trust.jpg File:Edward Tenison.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - A Merchant Captain with Elton's Quadrant - BHC3128 - Royal Museums Greenwich.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - Rhoda Apreece (d.1759), Mrs Francis Blake Delaval - 1276698 - National Trust.jpg File:Thomas Guy 1706.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) - George Venables-Vernon (1710–1780), 1st Baron Vernon of Kinderton - 653161 - National Trust.jpg File:Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot of Hensol by John Vanderbank.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) (style of) - Called 'Sir Pury Cust (1655–1698-1699)' - 436082 - National Trust.jpg File:John Vanderbank (1694-1739) (possibly) - Thomas Vernon (1655–1722), KC, MP - 414225 - National Trust.jpg File:Samuel Child (1693-1752).jpg File:Alexander Macfarlane GLA HAG 44266.jpg

Drawings

File:John Vanderbank, Portrait of a Standing Lady, 1734, NGA 70188.jpg File:John Vanderbank, Portrait of a Standing Lady, 1734, NGA 70187.jpg

Engravings and mezzotints

File:Edmund Waller by Peter Vanderbank.jpg File:Thomas Symonds. Mezzotint by G. White after J. Vanderbank, 1 Wellcome V0005709.jpg File:1stLordTalbot.jpg File:John Waugh (bishop).jpg File:Sir Isaac Newton. Mezzotint by J. Faber, junior, 1726, after Wellcome V0004265.jpg File:Sir Isaac Newton. Line engraving after J. Vanderbank, 1720. Wellcome V0004268ER.jpg File:Sir Isaac Newton. Line engraving after J. Vanderbank, 1720. Wellcome V0004268EL.jpg File:Sir Isaac Newton. Mezzotint by J. Faber, junior after J. Van Wellcome V0004271.jpg File:SirGeorgeFlemingBt2.jpg File:Edmund Gibson by John Faber Jr, after John Vanderbank.jpg File:Edmund Gibson by Burnet Reading, after John Vanderbank.jpg File:Anne Vane died 1736.jpg File:Nicholas Saunderson (Sanderson). Line engraving by G. van de Wellcome V0005223EL.jpg File:Thomas John Francis Strickland Faber.jpg File:Portrait of Sir Richard Blackmore. Wellcome M0012960.jpg