Mid 18th Century English Portrait Of A Gentleman Attributed To Bartholomew Dandridge.

A fine mid eighteenth century English portrait of the surgeon Alexander Small attributed to Bartholomew Dandridge. The modish and elegant sitter is depicted three quarter length seated upon a red chair in his library. His left hand grasps a large scale red Morocco bound volume whilst his right is unseen inside his waistcoat.

This outstanding bright yellow silk brocaded waistcoat is embroidered in its entirety with naturalistic leaves and petals and intricate floral motifs. It not only shows the refinement of 18th-century English embroidery it is also a great indicator of the sitters great wealth and social standing. Over this he wears a shimmering blue velvet jacket, every inch the accomplished 18th century English gentleman.

This fine work is house in its original hand carved 18th century English ‘centre and corner’ style frame with floral cartouches which retains its original gilding.

Alexander Small ( - 1752)
Alexander Small was a surgeon who worked around the west end of the Strand in London and is reported to have died in 1752. In 1698 he was described by John Colbach of York Buildings as"Mr. Alexander Small a surgeon in New Round Court, a young man of great honesty and industry, and one whom I frequently employ." (J. Colbach, A relation of a very sudden and extraordinary cure of a person bitten by a viper, London 1698): New Round Court was at the extreme west end of the Strand, on the north side. Later he moved south of the Strand to York-Buildings, Villiers Street. His monument in St Mary the Virgin, Clifton Reynes, Buckinghamshire, includes his bust by Roubiliac (also attributed to Scheemakers: Malcolm Baker, 'The making of portrait busts in the mid-eighteenth century', The Burlington magazine, December 1995, 137, p. 830). He was not the same Alexander Small, surgeon (1710-1794) who associated with Benjamin Franklin

Bartholomew Dandridge (1691 – c. 1754)
Dandrigge was an English portrait paniter. According to Horace Walpole, Dandridge was the son of a house-painter. He studied at Sir Godfrey Kneller's academy of painting and later at the St Martins Lane Academy. He had a career as a fashionable portrait painter in London for more than forty years, working in a style similar to that of John Vanderbank. In 1732, he was commissioned by Lord Barrington to paint a portrait of King Frederick on horseback.

In 1733, he moved to 55,Grewat Queen Street, which had formed part of the house of Sir Godfrey Kneller until his death two years before.He played a part in the development of the conversation piece, making groups of model figures to judge effects of light and shade.

His portraits of the historian Nathaniel Hooke and of Frederick, Prince of Wales are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, as is another painting by Dandridge, believed to be of William Kent. The collection of the Fitzwilliem Museum includes a Portrait of a Painter by Dandridge; this may be the self-portrait he is recorded as having painted in 1729, although the identification of the subject is not certain.

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Canvas: 36” x 28" / 91cm x 71cm.
Framed: 43” x 35" / 109cm x 89cm.