My great grandfather George Swift was born in Sheffield in 1840 so I guess that this portrait of him was painted around 1845. As far as I can tell, the painting isn’t signed.
It reminds me of those formal Victorian studio portrait photographs which often have a formal park on a painted backdrop.
My mum remembered as a toddler being prompted to look at this painting and say ‘Granddad, pull your sock up!’
The urn of flowers is a corner of the painting that appeals to me. I can imagine the portrait being produced by a team, with one artist adding the floral flourishes.
The pleasure dome in the background looks like the artist’s invention but the setting reminds me of Sheffield Botanical Gardens, a place that my great granddad George was familiar with.
When we drive past the gardens, I always find myself remembering my mum’s story that, when she was a baby, George would push her in her pram to the gardens but he complained that;
‘This baby always starts crying as soon as I get to the gates! And I have to turn around and bring her back to be fed.’
His good looks have come down through the generations and we’ve got photographs of one of his great great great grandsons standing by the portrait, hoop in hand looking very like his ancestor.
I had some difficulty photographing the painting because of the glossy varnish. Surprisingly, even though I had my camera on a tripod it came up with a ‘blink detected’ warning! I think it’s more likely that great granddad was winking at me.
Blitz Damage
The canvas has a tale to tell. Two patches of rubber glued to the back show where it was repaired when a bomb hit my granddad Swift’s house during the Sheffield Blitz.
There are two maker’s stamps on the back of the 3ft x 2ft 6 inch canvas. Geo. Rowney & Co. supplied the canvas, and perhaps the stretcher. I can’t decipher that London address.
There’s a clearer stamp from H. Hodgson of 39 West Street, Sheffield. It appears that Hodgson was a ‘Carvre & Gildre’, so presumably the carver and gilder who supplied the ornate frame.
If you’ve any ideas on that last line of Hodgson’s stamp, please let me know. Could that last word be ‘Stationer’?
After struggling with the final artwork in my last frame, I decided to work out everything carefully in my roughs. I even thought about the direction of the shading.
How do I make him look more like an idle bystander? How would that come across in his body language?
Waterton liked to walk barefoot which helps identify him as a dishevelled tramp-like character but to look down at Waterton’s bare feet as well as up at the tree tops of the park beyond that high defensive wall means that I have to fall back on that old cheat used by illustrators, rubberised perspective. It’s not so much of a cheat though because, if this was a film, which is the way that I keep thinking of it, and this was a panning shot, the perspective would keep changing as the camera tracked across the scene.
