Inscribed in paint: “To | His Excellency Cha[s]: Pinfold Cap[t] | Governour & Captain General | of the Island of | Barbadoes” | Watson label on the verso of frame.
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 124-125, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Front matter : Advertisement for M. R. Schweitzer, Paintings and Drawings by American and European Masters, Art Journal, vol. 25, Accessed February 25, 2023, p. 51, Available online at JSTORAndrew Jackson O'Shaugnessy, An Empire Divided : the American Revolution and the British Caribbean, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2000, p. 94, fig. 14, F2131 074X 2000 (SML)
Provenance:
Commissioned by Charles Pinfold (1709-1788), Governor of Barbados [1], from Thomas Hudson (1701-1779), the artist, in 1756; by descent to his nephew, Captain Charles Pinfold (ca. 1777-1857) of Walton Hall, Buckinghamshire [2]; by descent to his granddaughter, Fanny Maria Pinfold (1829-1902) [3]; by inheritance to her cousin Mary Katherine Seagrave (1858-1920) [4] …; acquired by Cecil George Doward (1899-1967) of Little Neck, Long Island, NY, and Meyer R. Schweitzer (1911-2006) of Schweitzer Gallery, 958 Madison Avenue, New York, NY (jointly owned); purchased by Paul Mellon (1907-1999) from Cecil G. Doward, November 1965; by whom given to the Yale Center for British Art, 1981. Notes: --- [1] Governor from 1756-1766 --- [2] Painting at E.F. Watson, 201 Piccadilly, London frame shop between 1836-1877. See Watson label on the verso of frame. --- [3] Walton Manor became the property of his granddaughter Fanny Maria Pinfold. She was described in 1871 as lady of the manor, and so remained till the close of the nineteenth century. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol4/pp485-489 --- [4] Seagrave inherited Walton Manor, and the stretcher of the painting carries a chalk inscription “SEAGRAVE” suggesting it was auctioned at some point in the early to mid twentieth century. Walton Manor was in 1904 purchased by Dr Edward Vaughan Berkley Harley. The Charles Pinfold Papers, now at the Library of Congress, were acquired in 1905, suggesting that the contents of Walton were released onto the market at around this time.