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Lot Essay
Johann Zoffany depicted his printseller, the successful businessman Robert Sayer, with his family in front of their Richmond home overlooking the river Thames, in this conversation piece that scholars have recently recognized as an important late work in the artist’s oeuvre. Sayer, seated on the right of the painting, likely commissioned it. He enjoyed a long business, as well as a personal, association with Zoffany. Sayer was one of London’s premier printsellers and published the influential charts produced by the circumnavigator Captain Cook, with whom Zoffany had planned to sail on a South Seas expedition in 1772. Zoffany’s relationship with Sayer was crucial for his international acclaim as an artist and whilst Zoffany was absent from London in Italy and India, Sayer continued to publish and distribute prints of Zoffany’s work, the last of which being Zoffany’s great picture, Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match (1784-86, Tate Britain, London). Sayer became a major patron of Zoffany’s and he owned one of the artists’ best-known ‘fancy’ pictures, A Porter with a Hare, painted in 1768. In 1770, Zoffany painted Sayer’s son, James, depicted as an angler at the age of thirteen (see M. Webster, Johann Zoffany 1733-1810, New Haven and London, 2011, p. 103, fig. 100).
The Sayer Family at Richmond is typical of Zoffany’s subtle ability to extract humor and character from what at first seems like a straightforward family portrait. In addition to Sayer, one sees his new wife, Alice (née Longfield), and his son James from his first marriage. The portrait was commissioned soon after the marriage and implicit in the painting are messages about inheritance and dynastic arrangements. Alice has temporarily put aside a book to engage in conversation with her stepson, as Robert leans forward listening attentively, the expression on his face displaying his undoubted eagerness that there should be no note of discord between his son and new wife. In that regard the painting epitomizes the essential requirement of a conversation piece, showing a group in a state of dramatic and psychological relation to one another.
James Sayer, then a young man of around twenty-four, occupies the central foreground of the painting. Towering over the other figures, he represents the successor in whom all of his father's hopes for posterity and continuation of the Sayer dynasty are embodied. The mature tree on the right is a symbol of this desirable permanency. Zoffany may also have been injecting humor into the scene by depicting the older man in the relatively simple attire of a country gentleman, in contrast to his son who wears more fashionable and extravagant dress, more suited to Town than Country (Wilson, op. cit., pp. 21-22). He is a son born into wealth and the superior social status that it brings. Zoffany may also be making a private joke into Sayer's frugality. Despite the family's wealth, the mansion behind them has many of its windows bricked up, probably the result of the window tax (introduced in 1696 and repealed in 1851) which encouraged Sayer to brick-up many of his windows.
The setting for the painting is Sayer’s house in Richmond overlooking the River Thames and Richmond Bridge. The house behind the family was previously thought to be Bridge House, Richmond, although this cannot be, as the size, architectural style and location do not accord with the records of Bridge House. Instead, it has been proposed that the house depicted is Sayer’s mansion Cardigan House (demolished in 1970), and this hypothesis is almost certain to be correct (Wilson, op. cit., pp. 29-46). Cardigan House may have been built by Sayer as an inducement for Alice to marry him. It likely remained unfinished at the time of Zoffany's portrait, suggesting his depiction of it involved a certain degree of artistic license. The Sayer Family of Richmond is also of topographical interest since it is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, depiction by a major artist of Richmond Bridge over the River Thames, considered one of the most beautiful views in England.
The Sayer Family at Richmond remained in the family’s possession until 1934, when it was acquired at Sotheby’s by London dealer William Permain on behalf of the American newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Later acquired by the Kimbell Museum of Art as an autograph work by the artist, it was de-accessioned in 1987 and was not published again as an autograph work by Zoffany until 2011, when it was included by Martin Postle in a note in the Royal Academy’s exhibition on Zoffany (loc. cit.). Since then the painting has been studied in-person by Martin Postle and Mary Webster (Wilson, op. cit., p. 86, note 3), both of whom reaffirmed its status as an autograph work.
The Sayer Family at Richmond is typical of Zoffany’s subtle ability to extract humor and character from what at first seems like a straightforward family portrait. In addition to Sayer, one sees his new wife, Alice (née Longfield), and his son James from his first marriage. The portrait was commissioned soon after the marriage and implicit in the painting are messages about inheritance and dynastic arrangements. Alice has temporarily put aside a book to engage in conversation with her stepson, as Robert leans forward listening attentively, the expression on his face displaying his undoubted eagerness that there should be no note of discord between his son and new wife. In that regard the painting epitomizes the essential requirement of a conversation piece, showing a group in a state of dramatic and psychological relation to one another.
James Sayer, then a young man of around twenty-four, occupies the central foreground of the painting. Towering over the other figures, he represents the successor in whom all of his father's hopes for posterity and continuation of the Sayer dynasty are embodied. The mature tree on the right is a symbol of this desirable permanency. Zoffany may also have been injecting humor into the scene by depicting the older man in the relatively simple attire of a country gentleman, in contrast to his son who wears more fashionable and extravagant dress, more suited to Town than Country (Wilson, op. cit., pp. 21-22). He is a son born into wealth and the superior social status that it brings. Zoffany may also be making a private joke into Sayer's frugality. Despite the family's wealth, the mansion behind them has many of its windows bricked up, probably the result of the window tax (introduced in 1696 and repealed in 1851) which encouraged Sayer to brick-up many of his windows.
The setting for the painting is Sayer’s house in Richmond overlooking the River Thames and Richmond Bridge. The house behind the family was previously thought to be Bridge House, Richmond, although this cannot be, as the size, architectural style and location do not accord with the records of Bridge House. Instead, it has been proposed that the house depicted is Sayer’s mansion Cardigan House (demolished in 1970), and this hypothesis is almost certain to be correct (Wilson, op. cit., pp. 29-46). Cardigan House may have been built by Sayer as an inducement for Alice to marry him. It likely remained unfinished at the time of Zoffany's portrait, suggesting his depiction of it involved a certain degree of artistic license. The Sayer Family of Richmond is also of topographical interest since it is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, depiction by a major artist of Richmond Bridge over the River Thames, considered one of the most beautiful views in England.
The Sayer Family at Richmond remained in the family’s possession until 1934, when it was acquired at Sotheby’s by London dealer William Permain on behalf of the American newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Later acquired by the Kimbell Museum of Art as an autograph work by the artist, it was de-accessioned in 1987 and was not published again as an autograph work by Zoffany until 2011, when it was included by Martin Postle in a note in the Royal Academy’s exhibition on Zoffany (loc. cit.). Since then the painting has been studied in-person by Martin Postle and Mary Webster (Wilson, op. cit., p. 86, note 3), both of whom reaffirmed its status as an autograph work.