◆ ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS POOLEY (IRISH 1646-1723) HALF LENGTH PORTRAIT OF JONATHAN SWIFT AS A STUDENT With later inscription, feigned oval, oil on canvas (71cm x 58cm (28in x 22.75in))Provenance (supporting documents sold with the lot):1) Thomas Percy (1729-1811), Bishop of Dromore; acquired by him in 1801 from Anthony Trail or Traill (1755-1831) of Mount Druid, Ballycastle, later Archdeacon of Connor, who in two letters to Percy (27 April and 5 May 1801) describes his own acquisition of the work c.1790 from 'Gonne, a carver and gilder in Abbey Street', evidently the Henry Gonne (fl.1765-99) who is recorded as a carver and looking-glass seller at 26 Abbey Street, Dublin (Glin & Peill, Irish Furniture, 2007, p. 293):‘An old family mansion house in the Co of Louth was about to be pull’d down, previous to the erection of a new one, and all the pictures in it were sent up to Dublin to be sold, as the proprietor did not chuse to be at the expence of new frames for them, and thought they would be unsuitable ornaments for a new house in their old black ones. Not chusing to sell them separately, I was oblig’d to purchase the whole in order to get three or four of them that I lik’d. The account given me of the Dean’s picture was as follows – He had been while at college an intimate companion of the young gentlemen of the above family, and frequently spent his vacations with them in the country. During one of these visits a painter was employed to paint some portraits in the family, and the Dean’s was painted along the rest, and had remain’d in the house ever since. As no particular value was set upon the picture, and as I had express’d no particular desire of purchasing it, it is improbable that such a story should have been told me, if it had not been true. I am sorry however that I have forgot the name of the family, but it has escap’d my memory.'Thence by descent to:2) Mr Edward Richard Meade (1805-1890) of 5 Gloucester Place, Portman Square, London, the picture with him by 1867, when exhibited at South Kensington (see below). Meade was the grandson of Thomas Percy by the marriage of Percy’s daughter Elizabeth to Pierce Meade (1776-?), Archdeacon of Dromore (John Sharpe, Peerage of the British Empire, [1833], volume I, f. 2A6 v.).3) Miss Constance Meade (1852-1941), of 15 Eaton Terrace, Knightsbridge, London, daughter of Edward Richard Meade.4) Mr Kenneth George Francis Balfour (1909-1998), of Quoitings, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, nephew of Constance Meade.5) Mrs Virginia Cardwell Moore, of Coupar Angus, Perthshire.Exhibited:1) South Kensington Museum, Second Special Exhibition of National Portraits commencing with the Reign of William and Mary and ending the Year 1800, 1867. (Catalogue no. 139, described as 'Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St Patrick's ... Bust. as a young man in student's black gown, when a student at Trin. Coll. Dublin', owner recorded as Mr. E. Meade, a copy of the catalogue with presentation plate to Meade sold with the lot, q. v.).2) Exhibition Palace, Dublin, Exhibition of Arts, Industries and Manufactures, 1872.3) National Library of Ireland, Fair Liberty! was all his cry: Jonathan Swift and his Contemporaries, 1999.Published:A Series of Historical Portraits Selected from the National Portrait Exhibitions at South Kensington: Photographed from the Original Paintings (London, [1867]) (plate 139).The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., edited by Temple Scott (London, 1911) (frontispiece).Bruce Arnold, Swift: An Illustrated Life (Dublin, 1999) (cover illustration).Literature:David Woolley, ‘Miscellanea in Two Parts: I. An Autograph, II. A Portrait’, Swift Studies, 8 (1993), 94-99.Jane Fenlon, ‘More about the Portrait of Jonathan Swift when a Student at Trinity College, Dublin’, Swift Studies, 15 (2000), pp. 33-38.David Woolley, ‘A Rejoinder from the Author of The Doubtful Portrait, etc.’, Swift Studies, 15 (2000), pp. 39-41.Joseph McMinn, Jonathan Swift and the Arts (Newark, DL: University of Delaware Press, 2010), p. 168 n. 7.Supporting documents:Full information available on request.
