John Hamilton Mortimer (Eastbourne 1740-1779 London)

Banditti fishing

Details

John Hamilton Mortimer (Eastbourne 1740-1779 London)
Banditti fishing
oil on canvas
30¼ x 25¼ in. (76.8 x 64.1 cm.)

Provenance

Richard Payne Knight, Downton Castle, Herefordshire; by descent to
Major W.M.P. Kincaid Lennox; by descent to
Denis Lennox; Sotheby's, London, 17 June 1981, lot 84.
with Morton Morris & Company Ltd., London, where acquired by Christian B. Peper, 1982.

Literature

M. Clarke and N. Penny, The Arrogant Connoisseur: Richard Payne Knight, 1751-1824, exhibition catalogue, Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, 1982, pp. 96-97, 180, no. 188.
J. Sunderland, John Hamilton Moritmer: His Life and Works, Walpole Society, LII, 1988, p. 177, no. 124, fig. 217.

Exhibited

(Possibly) London, Society of Artists, 1777, no. 89, as 'a small picture of Banditti fishing'.
Birmingham, Works of Art from Midland Houses, 18 July-6 September 1953, no. 52.
Eastbourne, Towner Art Gallery and Kenwood, Iveagh Bequest, John Hamilton Mortimer, A.R.A., 1749-1799: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, 6 July-3 September and 10 September-8 October 1968, no. 70.
Paris, Petit Palais, La Peinture Romantique Anglaise et les préraphaelites, January-April 1972, no. 194.
Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, Richard Payne Knight Exhibition, February-April 1982.

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Lot Essay

Banditti (bandits) became familiar to English painting after the mid-1700s. Mortimer, however, was the first English artist to make these lively figures the central subjects of his work, and by the early 1770s the subject of banditti, which hearkened to the anti-academic and dramatic work of Salvator Rosa, had become incredibly popular to a wide group of his contemporaries.

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