XV - Works On Paper - Marty de Cambiaire (English)

Royal Academician, beating Constable by 18 votes
to 5, in 1828.
Etty began painting portraits as early as in the
1810s, but it is not until the early 1830s that he
began to paint portraits in a more concentrated
fashion, partly because of ill-health but also
because they could be a regular source income.
His fellow artists were dismayed by his move to
become a portrait painter, considering the field
to be inferior to the ambitious field of large scale
history painting. A commissioned portrait of
Elizabeth Potts exhibited at the Summer exhibition
of 1834, was titled A portrait and though technically
superb, was poorly received by critics. Persevering,
Etty lavished time and insisted on repeated sittings
to finish to his own high standards the Portrait of
Charlotte and Mary Williams-Wynn Preparing for
a Fancy Dress Ball (now in the York Art Gallery),
which was begun in 1833. This was exhibited at
the summer show of 1835, alongside the present
portrait of George Shepherd, as well as nine other
works. Etty continued to paint private portraits of
his friends but undertook very few public portrait
commissions and only thirty of his portraits were
exhibited during his lifetime. Although small in
number, some of his portraits are among the most
charming works of his entire production.
Actual size detail
100