William Gore

Physical description

Portrait of a man, to front and wearing a neckcloth and long wig. Features drawn with long strokes of sanguine, shaded with a little blue and grey-brown, and blended with a pale carnation ground; hair washed and hatched in pale yellowish-brown with grey and white heightening; collar in grey heightened with white, the tie in pale ultramarine shaded with darker colour; costume washed and hatched in mixed transparent and opaque grey and black; the shirt in white washes; the background in black wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Frame: A recently made double-sided silver locket, with shallowly convex glass set in strip sides which curve to the bezels; the hanger of the rectangular section grooved down the middle and flanked by tapering spirals in flat wire of six turns.

Place of Origin

England, Great Britain (painted)

Date

1670 (painted)

Artist/maker

Peter Cross, born 1640 - died 1724 (artist)

Materials and Techniques

Watercolour on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book

Marks and inscriptions

'PC'
'Mr willm gore picto[?r] / P:Cross: fecit 1670'

Dimensions

Height: 62 mm, Width: 51 mm

Object history note

Provenance: Mrs Gore Langton; sold Sotheby's 1 August 1935, lot 70, bt Agnew on behalf of the Museum with funds from the Capt. H B Murray Bequest

Descriptive line

Portrait miniature of William Gore, watercolour on vellum, painted by Peter Cross, 1670.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Cat.166, p. 280. Full citation:

“William Gore
(b.1635 d.1711)
1670
P55-1935

Oval 62x51 mm

Features drawn with long strokes of sanguine, shaded with a little blue and grey-brown, and blended with a pale carnation ground; hair washed and hatched in pale yellowish-brown with grey and white heightening; collar in grey heightened with white, the tie in pale ultramarine shaded with darker colour; costume washed and hatched in mixed transparent and opaque grey and black; the shirt in white washes; the background in black wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Condition: Minor damage in the hair, and some retouches; marginal abrasions; a little blackening in the lead-white of the shirt.

Signed: Lower centre right: PC (see B in Appendix 2); and on the back in graphite, underlined with a long flourish: Mr willm gore picto [?r] / P:Cross: fecit i670; and in ink: 5 / 18.

Frame: A recently made double-sided silver locket, with shallowly convex glass set in strip sides which curve to the bezels; the hanger of the rectangular section grooved down the middle and flanked by tapering spirals in flat wire of six turns.

Provenance: Mrs Gore Langton; sold Sotheby's 1 August 1935, lot 70, bt Agnew on behalf of the Museum with funds from the Capt. H B Murray Bequest.

Literature: Reynolds 1952, p. 90; Reynolds 1959, no. 19; Foskett 1963, p. 82; Foskett 1972, vol. I, p. 227, vol. n, pl. 67, no. 189; Murdoch 1978, p. 288, fig. 32; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p.13; Murdoch 1981, pp. 160-2, fig. 176; Reynolds 1988, p.84, fig.48.

This is the miniature which in 1935 established P Cross, rather than Paolo Carandini or Pen elope Cleyn, as the artist who used the Simple Roman initials PC as his signature. At this date only a very small group of miniatures with these initials was known, all dating from about the 1660s or 1670s. On the subsequent history ofp Cross and his relation to 'Lawrence Crosse', see the biographical preface to this section and the literature there cited. On the stylistic character of William Gore and its relation to the other early works by Peter Cross, see entry for Cat. No. 163 [P.11-1915].

William Gore was presumably Willem Goeree (1635-1711), the son of a distinguished theologian and physician of Middelburg and the father of Jan Goeree (1670-1731), the engraver. Willem, whose early studies were interrupted by his father's death in c.1643, became known principally as a bibliophile and book-dealer in Amsterdam. His publications include important works of biblical history and ecclesiology, but earlier in his career, c. 1670, he may have been better known for his interests in painting. Cross here calls him 'pictor'. The British Library Catalogue of Printed Books credits him with Anweisung zu der Practic oder Handlung der allgemeinen MahlerKunst [Instruction in the Practice or Execution of the General Art of Painting], Hamburg 1678, translated from the Dutch by J Lange. The Dutch text translated by Lange was, according to Long, (l) Goeree's Inleydinge tot de algemeene Teyken-Konst [Introduction to the General Art of Drawing], after 'Gerhard of Brugge' . Gore himself brought out the English translation of the latter in 1674, one of the key works of the English literature of art in the third quarter of the seventeenth century.

1 MS note in departmental files."

Materials

Watercolour; Vellum

Techniques

Painting

Subjects depicted

Man; Gore, William

Categories

Portraits; Paintings

Collection code

PDP