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William Hoare of Bath (near Eye, Suffolk 1707 - Bath 1792)
Portrait of a lady wearing a blue dress
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Pastel on paper
23 x 17 ½ inches; 58.5 x 44.5 cm
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William Hoare was a highly successful artist in 18th century England, noted both for his paintings and prints. He was a contemporary of Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, and, like them, a founding member of the Royal Academy. He was also a considerable classical scholar. He had received a gentleman's education in Faringdon, Berks. Showing a marked aptitude for drawing, his father sent him to London to study under Giuseppe Grisoni, who had left Florence for London in 1715. When Grisoni returned to Italy in 1728, Hoare went with him to Rome, where he shared lodgings at 53 via Gregoriana (Palazzo Zuccaro) with Angillis, a painter, and Delvaux and Scheemakers, both sculptors. In Rome, Hoare studied under Francesco Fernandi, called Imperiali, who had taught both Ramsay and Batoni. And, of profound and lasting importance, in Italy he saw the work of the Venetian pastellist Rosalba Carriera, an experience that would so greatly influence his later work in portraiture. He remained in Rome for nine years, returning to London in 1737.
Soon after his return he settled in Bath (by 1739), where his brother, Prince, practiced as a sculptor. William Hoare quickly established a highly successful practice in painting portraits in crayons and oils. Bath was an expanding spa town with a constant influx of visitors eager for portraits, whose needs Hoare met by producing pastels which clearly reflect his study of the work of the great Italian pastel artists he had seen, such as Rosalba Carriera and Benedetto Luti. Our exquisite Portrait of a lady in a blue dress is a marvelous example of Hoare at his best.
By 1744, he had married Elizabeth Barker, and their first child, Mary, was born in that year. Hoare’s more important patrons at this time included the Earls of Pembroke and Chesterfield, and the Duke of Beaufort. In 1742 the artist became a councilor of the new Royal Mineral Water Hospital in Bath, thereby establishing his social position in the city. His artistic standing was also well established, and, during the 1740s and 1750's he painted a great number of influential politicians and social leaders, including Prime Ministers Pitt and Walpole, and the composer, Handel. The most important of these being his official portraits of political men (e.g. William Pitt the Elder, c. 1754; London, N.P.G.); there are several versions of most of these, suggesting that he had a studio, and they were further publicized by the production of mezzotints by leading engravers of the day. Hoare himself was a delicate etcher and published a number of private plates, mostly of family and friends, including Miss Hoare (probably Mary), Henry Somerset, 3rd Duke of Beaufort and Christopher Anstey (all London, British Museum).
Throughout the 1760s and 1770s Hoare's portraits developed a softer, more natural style. The sitters are less likely to be posed, and instead appear to be interrupted at their daily tasks. Under Gainsborough's influence the brushwork becomes more feathery. The color schemes of his pastel style are simplified and muted. Hoare died at Bath in December of 1792 'aged 84'. Like many crayon portraitists of his time, most of his pastels were produced in narrow proportions for the practical reason that standard glass usually came like that. His portraits are the highest calibre and the sitters are sensitively portrayed.
William Hoare lived in Bath for fifty years, with only a short break in London (c. 1751). From 1761, he contributed works to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists in London. He was elected to the Royal Academy in December 1769, soon after the foundation of that institution, and exhibited there until 1779. He was always encouraging to younger and aspiring artists, and Chalmers described him in 1814 as "an ingenious and amiable English artist."
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