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

William Etty
York 1787 – 1849
30
Portrait of a Boy: George Shepherd, 8 Years Old
Oil on board
Inscribed No. 5/ W. Etty. R.A./ Study of a Boy’s/ Head/ George Shepherd/ 8 years of age
on the old backing board
44 x 30,7 cm (17 1 /4 x 12 in.)
PROVENANCE
Bought directly from the artist and by descent in the
same family; Swiss private collection.
EXHIBITED
London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1835, no. 36 (Study
of the Head of a Youth) 1 .
LITERATURE
Alexander Gilchrist, Life of William Etty, R.A.,
London 1855, vol. II, pp.22-23, Head of a Boy.
This most delicate and lively study of a young boy
wearing a wide linen collar was exhibited at the
Royal Academy of Art in 1835. Its sensitivity, style
and mobility are much ahead of its time: its painterly
freedom shows the inspiration of Thomas Lawrence
but its bright modernity links it more with works by
Sargent or even Boldini than with other painters of
the 1830s. Etty’s reputation has only quite recently
revived; it fell into disaffection during the Victorian
period when his paintings of nudes, both male and
female, where considered an affront to respectable
art lovers. With the exception of a monograph
published in 1855 by Alexander Gilchrist 2 , it was
not until 2007 and 2011 that new studies were
eventually undertaken 3 . In the 1830s and 1840s he
was, however, both prolific and successful, working
as a painter of histories on a splendid scale, of
landscapes, and as the first English artist to paint
significant still lives.
Brought up in York, after a seven year long
apprenticeship to a print publisher in Hull, Etty
came to London and via an introduction to John
Opie who was impressed with his drawings he was
accepted into the schools of the Royal Academy
by Henry Fuseli. Etty was much influenced by the
lectures of John Opie who advised his students to
pay great attention to Titian and, having developed
a powerful admiration for Thomas Lawrence, an
informal apprenticeship was arranged in which Etty
was allowed to copy Lawrence’s paintings and ask
occasional questions. In 1816, after a failed attempt
to marry, Etty set off for Italy, arriving in Florence in
September but after a month of suffering from dirt
and vermin, he began the journey back to England
with only a brief sojourn in Paris in the studio of
Jean-Baptiste Regnault. In 1821, Etty exhibited
a grand painting of Cleopatra’s Arrival in Cicilia,
which received considerable attention and led to
commissions and sales of future work, despite the
criticism of the Times, which considered that his
style could “gratify only the most vicious taste”.
In 1822, Etty managed a second trip to Italy and
studied monuments and paintings in Rome, Naples,
Florence, Ferrara and most happily in Venice
which he considered “the hope and idol of [his]
professional life”. He attended life classes at the
Venetian Academy of Fine Arts and acquired the
name “il diavolo” for the speed at which he was able
to paint. Pandora Crowned by the Seasons was Etty’s
first major work on returning to England. Entered for
the summer exhibition at the Academy in 1824, it
was bought by his hero Thomas Lawrence (now in
the Tate Gallery).
Shortly afterwards Etty was made an associate
of the Royal Academy, he settled into a studio in
Buckingham Street where he remained for the rest
of his working life. His career, though frequently
controversial, (by 1837 his huge painting of The
Sirens and Ulysses was described by the Spectator
magazine as “a disgusting combination of
voluptuousness and loathsome putridity – glowing
in colour and wonderful in execution, but conceived
in the worst possible taste”,) was on firm ground
from that point onwards and Etty was made a full
98