Alexander Constantine Ionides and his Wife

Painting height: 150 cm
Painting width: 183 cm
Frame height: 180 cm
Frame width: 210 cm

An ambitious early commission. The Ionides family, originally from Constantinople were of Greek descent, and the father, Alexander Constantine, pictured here to the left of the painting, was making his name as a leading textile merchant after moving to Britain in 1827. Soon after, he founded the firm of Ionides & Co. and commissioned a relatively unknown George Watts to paint this tender portrait of his young family. The painting is a rare example in the Watts Gallery Trust’s collection of a family group portrait created at the beginning of the artist’s career. A relatively informal portrait, it demonstrates 18th century art historical influences as indicated in the arrangement of the sitters and their setting.

In 1837, Alexander Constantine Ionides (1810–1890) commissioned a young George Watts to produce a copy of a portrait of his father, with the intention to send it to hang in the firm’s office in Constantinople. On receiving the portrait, Ionides announced that he much preferred it to the original, and from this point onwards the family became Watts’s loyal friends and patrons. As detailed in the catalogue of works compiled by Mary Watts, Watts painted five generations of the Ionides family, mostly in the form of individual portraits, over the course of six decades [1].

Traditionally, family portraits were commissioned to mark a particular moment in the family’s life, such as recording a birth, or celebrating an inheritance of a title of estate. In this instance, the commission was prompted by the birth of Alexander and Euterpe’s fourth child, Alexander, sometimes referred to as Alecco (1840–98). It also coincided with the family’s move to the rural suburb of Tulse Hill in south London.

The baby boy can be seen sat on his mother’s lap, arm’s outstretched, fascinated with something in the distance. His older sister Aglaia (1834–1906), scrambles onto her mother, with her arms affectionately wrapped around her neck. Her older brother Luke (1837–1924) sits at her feet, offering an apple. As the eldest child, Constantine (1833–1900) stands to the far right of the picture. Separate from the family group, he does not interact with his mother as his younger siblings do. He is the only figure standing and engages with the viewer as he rests on a staff. He is presented in an authoritative position that indicates his role as the heir to the family business, fortune and name. His father, seated to the far left of the work, appears to half emerge from the shadows, looking admiringly and protectively over his family.

Unlike their father, both sons are wearing national dress associated with the ceremonial unit of the Greek presidential guard, which proudly asserts the family’s heritage [2]. The different textures and materials present in the composition allowed Watts to expertly demonstrate his skill as a painter. From the elaborate gold embroidery of the boys’ jackets and boots to their silk sashes with tassels, from the velvet curtain to the delicate and almost transparent lace sleeve of the mother, from the plump flesh of the baby’s knees and the soft wispiness of his hair, this multitude of textures are all skilfully and confidently depicted on a large scale. The restrained and controlled paint application produces a flat and smooth surface which, in addition to his meticulous attention to detail, is characteristic of Watts’s early painting style.

The composition itself is also unique to Watts’ early career. He is known to have painted two other family groups; the family of the barrister and politician George Augustus Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck and the Copeland family, of whom we know little about. Similarities can be drawn between these works and 18^th century examples of family portraits, in particular those by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

We can compare this portrait with Reynolds’s Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons, 1773. The mothers and their energetic young children are presented as an isolated unit within the wider composition [3]. The father is completely removed from the Reynolds group, but in Watts he still maintains a supervisory and authoritative position, whilst engrossed in the wellbeing of his family [4]. Both families are sat beneath a red, velvet curtain; a feature which can be traced back to Italian Renaissance portraiture. This device enforces the idea that this is not only a spectacle, but an intimate group inhabiting a private space, which we as the viewers are privileged to see [5].

A smaller version of this family portrait can be found at the V&A museum, as part of the Ionides collection. We know this to be an earlier study for the final composition, as indicated by the handwritten label attached to the back of the work which reads: ‘Sketch painted at Tulse Hill / of Alexander Constantine Ionides / his wife & children by me / G. F. Watts’ [6]. Painted in the family home, the portrait was only ever intended for display there and remained a personal and private portrayal of the family.

Explore:

Two pages of family groups from sketchbook [COMWG.2007.199]

Footnotes:

[1] Mary Seton Watts, Catalogue of Portraits by G.F. Watts O.M. R.A., vol. II, c.1915, pp.73-79

[2] Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts: Victorian Visionary (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with Watts Gallery, 2008), p.89.

[3] Kate Retford, The Art of Domestic Life: Family Portraiture in Eighteenth-century England (New Haven: Yale University Press: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006), p.85.

[4] Kate Retford, The Art of Domestic Life: Family Portraiture in Eighteenth-century England (New Haven: Yale University Press: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006), p.127.

[5] Jodi Cranston, The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

[6] The Family of Alexander Constantine Ionides, Object entry, V&A Collections Online <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O81538/the-family-of-alexander-constantine-oil-painting-watts-george-frederic/> [accessed 17^th January 2020]

Further Reading:

Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts: Victorian Visionary (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with Watts Gallery, 2008).

Wilfred Blunt, England’s Michelangelo: a biography of George Frederick Watts (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975).

Jodi Cranston, The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Caroline Dakers, The Holland Park circle: artists and Victorian society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

Kate Retford, The Art of Domestic Life: Family Portraiture in Eighteenth-century England (New Haven: Yale University Press: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006).

Mary Seton Watts, Catalogue of Portraits by G.F. Watts O.M. R.A., Vol. II, c.1915.

Text by Dr Stacey Clapperton