Completed Dress and Textiles, London: Artists and Subjects, Portraits: British 18th C, South West England: Artists and Subjects 20 Could Benjamin West have painted this portrait of Elizabeth Shebbeare?

The Collection has commented: 'We do not have any information on the artist of this work. We were gifted both this portrait and that of Charles William Le Geyt in 1937 from the le Geyt family but with no accompanying documentation. There is no visible artist's signature.'

“Could Benjamin West have painted this portrait of Elizabeth Shebbeare?” My sense is that the answer to this question in this new discussion is firmly, “No”.

The portrait in question dates to the late 1760s or 1770s from the hair style. See, for example, the attached detail from Gainsborough’s portrait of his daughters dating to the early 1770s. If we look at a comparable portrait by Benjamin West, for example his portrait of Mrs William Abercromby dating to the same period, we find that West’s style was harder edged and more precise. Even allowing for the condition of our portrait, it is clearly painted in a much looser style by a less competent artist, as is apparent from the gauche handling of the left background column and foliage within the confined space of a half-length portrait contained within an oval.

We must look elsewhere to identify the minor hand behind our portrait and this search may not be straightforward.

One interesting connection: Fanny Burney in her diary mentions meeting John Shebbeare at the house of the portraitist Catherine (or Katherine) Reid (or Read) in 1774.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Shebbeare,_John


She was mainly a pastellist but according to Neil Jeffares, also in worked oil
http://www.pastellists.com/articles/read.pdf

The husband's portrait in this collection has been discussed here before, and it is either by a superior hand or a more successful portrait by the same artist. See below:

https://bit.ly/31ikSvR

Here is a composite of the two works (‘Elizabeth Shebbeare, First Wife of Charles William Le Geyt’ and ‘Captain Charles William Le Geyt (1733–1827), 3rd Regiment of Foot’). Notice the similar dark blue of the wrap in the right foreground of her portrait and the collar in his portrait.

The husband's portrait is probably earlier and may well be by a different and better hand, though some painters are less successful with female portraits than with male ones.

They seem to have very little in common to my eye, and certainly were not painted as a pair. Apart from hers being undoubtedly a later work (see the previous discussion for the dating of his), it is painted in an oval format; and while his background is plain and very dark, hers has both drapery and a small landscape detail.

The face does not "feel" like West to me, and the handling of dress is not finished or precise enough. Here are a couple of examples:

https://www.pictorem.com/19808/Queen Charlotte.html

https://www.pictorem.com/19796/Magdalenwhyte.html

Also, West was quite a name (and presumably expensive) c. 1770, meaning he may have been too upmarket for this sitter.

A portrait of Captain Charles William Le Geyt and his family by a "follower of Johann Joseph Zoffany” was in a Dreawatts auction on 14 December 2022.

https://auctions.dreweatts.com/auctions/8568/drewea1-10377

The portrait of Mrs. William Abercromby by Benjamin West that Jacob mentioned (30/10/2021 12:04) is presently in a Christie’s auction.

https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6423945

A website for Jersey Heritage shows that the donor of this work was Miss A. A. Le Geyt and that it is dated 1773. The “acquisition method” for this work on Art UK could be improved.

https://tinyurl.com/36fj3d5n

Alice Adelaide Le Guyt (bapt. 9 January 1869 – 17 December 1941) was the daughter of William Bell Le Geyt (d. 7 December 1916) and his wife Kate Mina George Le Geyt (née Murray)(d. 1 March 1921).

Please try this link instead for that auction in 2022:

https://auctions.dreweatts.com/auctions/8568/drewea1-10377/lot-details/0718c817-e195-4039-ba9d-b00000c7faa9

I've finally figured out my error. That portrait of Captain Charles William Le Geyt and his family is listed in the catalogue (lot 57) of the upcoming Dreweatts ‘Old Master, British and European Art’ auction of 14 June 2023 but the MutualArt website shows that it was in an auction last year (artist “William Charles”). I don’t know the name of the auction house.

https://tinyurl.com/chh9anmh

That listing on MutualArt, presumably from the auction house, is glaringly wrong as to date, which is obviously 18th century, not 17th. William Charles (1776-1820) https://bit.ly/42EUGX5 was an engraver and political caricaturist, not a painter. It's all rather dubious.

The Dreweatts listing is much more plausible, but that does not mean the painter for the family group was the same as the painter for our portrait.

I haven’t been able to pin down the age of the couple’s eldest son, Charles William Le Geyt. He was baptized in 1768 but a tree on Ancestry shows his birth year as “abt. 1760”. He passed away in 1806.

The information in the MutualArt listing was indeed incorrectly transcribed, Jacinto. I’ve located the catalogue. That work was in the Dreweatts auction of 14 December 2022 (lot 130) with that auction house’s current artist attribution.

I’ve attached the burial record for Elizabeth Shebbeare just for the record since it is so full of details about her life.

As shown in the attached extracts from her will, Emma Elizabeth Le Geyt (née Bell) (9 October 1815 – 9 April 1884) bequeathed “the two large family portraits of Capt. C.W. Le Geyt & his wife” to her “elder son” William Bell Le Geyt (bapt. 23 August 1837 – 7 December 1916).

This discussion seems unlikely to make further progress, but thanks to Marcie we have improved the acquisition records for this portrait and that of 'Captain Charles William Le Geyt (1733–1827), 3rd Regiment of Foot'.

Marcie gives a link to a Jersey Heritage accession photograph from 1937 which gives the date of this portrait as 1773. http://tinyurl.com/4ntau7a2

The current online catalogue has 1770s, adopted by PCF/Art UK, and Jacob commented 'late 1760s or early 1770s'. http://tinyurl.com/n7bzmv3b

Before we close, I have asked the collection if they know why 1773 was recorded in 1937. The collection comments above don't mention any labels and it is not signed.

The original subject for this discussion was whether the artist could be Benjamin West. The conclusion is that it is not by West but by a minor artist who will be difficult to identify. Thank you to everybody who joined the discussion, and as noted by Marion on 23/1/24 the acquisition records have been improved by Marcie.