A Late 18thC English School Oil on Canvas Portrait of a Young Child with King Charles Spaniel c.1780

Origin: English
Period: George III
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1770-90
Height: 16”
Width: 16”

The George III period oil on canvas, depicting a portrait of a seated child in a period white dress, the young girl full of face and shown cradling her King Charles spaniel, the whole once being part of a larger work, now of square form and in as found condition.

The painting is apparently unsigned and in un-cleaned condition and is in tired and distressed order. It could be restored of course but is charming in its own right with the important areas of the picture still present. It was obviously part of a larger composition at one stage.

Within the world of portraiture, those of children occupy a special place amongst our tangible treasures. Late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century parents commissioned likenesses of their offspring for the same reasons that prompt us to bedeck our youngsters in Sunday-best attire and haul them off to the photographer's. Higher mortality rates made earlier parents keenly aware of the ephemeral nature of life, and perhaps sharpened the sense of urgency with which they sought to halt time through the illusion of portraiture.

In the mid 18th century attitudes to children and childhood began to change. Children were no longer perceived simply as small adults and childhood began to be recognised as an independent state associated with nature. Animal companions were an important part of 18th Century life and artists thus increasingly portrayed children outdoors in natural settings or surrounded by natural objects. 

A charming portrait of a well-loved child and a super depiction of one of Britain’s best-loved hounds.