Jonathan Tyers, with His Daughter Elizabeth, and Her Husband John Wood
Date:
between 1750 and 1752
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
39 x 34 inches (99.1 x 86.4 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.328
Gallery Label:
Jonathan Tyers, shown seated, was the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens, the fashionable London pleasure grounds that offered evening concerts and other entertainments on the banks of the Thames. Tyers employed many of the artists in William Hogarth’s circle to decorate Vauxhall’s public spaces; the painting of Quadrille by Gravelot (shown nearby) is a modello for one of these Vauxhall pictures. Tyers was a major patron of Francis Hayman and frequently commissioned family portraits from him. This example may well have been painted to mark the marriage of Elizabeth Tyers (seated) to John Wood (standing to the left). Here, Hayman borrows directly from contemporary French painting, especially the fêtes galantes of Antoine Watteau, who had spent some time in London in 1720 but whose work was mostly known in Britain through prints. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
