Portraits in Oxford *

OP97
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster

Artist: by George Frederic Watts

Date: 1866-1867

Medium: oil on canvas

Measurements: height 1041 mm. (41 in.) width 889 mm. (35 in.)

Inscriptions:
below to right, in white: 'G.F. Watts'

Acquisition: gift from Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, 1879

Location: Examination Schools

Description:
Three-quarter length, seated to left in green armchair; curly grey hair and whiskers; white tie; black gown over black clothes; red ribbon of the Order of the Bath as dean of the Order round neck; his arms supported on the arms of the chair, the hands hanging over the ends; warm grey background; red curtain to left.

Commissioned by the sitter at a cost of three hundred guineas.

In her manuscript catalogue of her husband's works, compiled c.1910, Mary Seton Watts recorded that this portrait was painted from 1866-1867. She also noted that 'Oxford possesses, in the Bodleian, the portrait of Dean Stanley, of Lord Lothian, and of the Rev. Henry Coxe, librarian, all usually considered as belonging to the first rank of Mr. Watts's portraiture.' (M.S. Watts, George Frederic Watts: the annals of an artist's life , 3 vols, 1912, 1, p.306)

The portrait was transferred to the Examination Schools by Act of Convocation in 1929: 'That the Curators of the Bodleian Library be authorized to transfer from the Picture Gallery to the Examination Schools ten portraits, [including] Dean Stanley, by Watts (Oxford University Gazette 13 Nov 1929, p.144).

Exhibitions:
Royal Academy, 1867; Grosvenor Gallery, 1881-2; Royal Academy, 1956; Victorian Exhibition, 1892, no.137

Literature:
R. Lane Poole, Catalogue of Portraits in the possession of the University, Colleges, City, and County of Oxford, 3 vols (1912, 1925), I, p.123, no.309; Catalogue of the Victorian Exhibition 1837-1897, New Gallery, London (1892), p.51; ‘Catalogue of the works of G. F. Watts, compiled by his widow’, 3 MS vols., c.1910, Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey (photographic copy, National Portrait Gallery Archive, London, II, portraits, p.149); V.F. Gould, G.F. Watts : the last great Victorian (2004), p.80; B. Bryant, G.F. Watts portraits: fame & beauty in Victorian society (2004), pp.33-35