Sir Henry Taylor

Painting height: 66 cm
Painting width: 53.3 cm
Frame height: 85 cm
Frame width: 72 cm

An unfinished portrait of the poet, dramatist, essayist and civil servant Sir Henry Taylor (1800–1886). As a celebrated writer and a close friend of Alfred Tennyson and Julia Margaret Cameron, it seemed inevitable that Watts would paint Taylor for his ‘Hall of Fame’ portrait series. Although unfinished, this portrait head reveals the methods behind Watt’s painting practice. The flesh tones of the face have been painted on a yellow ground, in order to provide warmth. In addition, the eye sockets remain empty which was at odds with the usual practice of portrait painters. The finished version of this portrait belongs to the National Portrait Gallery collection.

Growing up in Northumberland, Taylor began his writing career in 1822 when he published critical literary essays for the Quarterly Review and the London Magazine. After subsequently relocating to London, he became a clerk in the Colonial Office in 1824, after a recommendation from Sir Henry Holland. Making an impression he was quickly promoted to senior Clerk for the Caribbean colonies in 1825, which was a position he held until his retirement in 1872 [1]. During this period however, Taylor persevered with a career in poetry and in 1834 he published the tragic play Philip van Artevelde which was an instant success and regarded as a ‘classic statement of the shift in taste from Romantic to Victorian’ [2]. This success meant that Taylor was sought after in society soirees, including those at Holland House, although he claimed to not have enjoyed Lady Holland’s company and invitations to subsequent gatherings did not last long [3].

During his lifetime, Taylor was a close friend of Julia Margaret Cameron after meeting at Little Holland House and becoming neighbours in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in 1848. It is possible that Cameron originally initiated the sitting for Watts. In December 1860 she wrote to the artist to persuade him ‘that you who have so often told me of the high respect you have for work, should honour the Practical Poet [Taylor] and do him immortal honour - even as you have done immortal honour to our contemplative poet [Tennyson] [...] [F]ulfil your reiterated intention & paint for your gallery of great men this great head - won’t you?’ [4].

In order to provide warmth for the flesh tones of the face, Watts chose to paint Taylor’s portrait on a yellow ground. Evidence of purple paint is visible in lips, cheeks and hollow of the left eye socket. Taylor’s characteristic lengthy and bushy grey beard, which he grew after an illness left him unable to shave, is well developed in tones of grey and brown. The same grey paint features in the bottom right hand corner of the canvas, perhaps as an abandoned attempt to depict Taylor’s clothing. The eye sockets are left empty. For Watts, eyes were integral to his portrait practice as he believed them to be vital in reproducing not only the outward appearance but also the sitter’s ‘character and nature’ [5]. As their depiction was so essential to achieving a sitter’s inner character, they would have been completed at a later stage in the painting process [6].

In the finished portrait, now part of the ‘Hall of Fame’ series at the National Portrait Gallery, a subtle difference in design from the unfinished version is evident. In the finished version, the head is positioned further up with his hair almost touching the top edge of the canvas. This positioning illustrates Watts’s theory, which he explained to the art critic Marion Spielmann, ‘that if you have to paint a tall man you should place him high up on the canvas; if a short man low down [7]. In the finished canvas the background of the bay leaves of the luscious green background suggests that Taylor was painted ‘as [Watts] saw him, in the garden of Little Holland House’ [8]. The rendering of a leafy background also features in two other ‘Hall of Fame’ portraits executed around this time: Alfred Tennyson, 1863-4, and William Morris, 1870.

Footnotes:

[1] Mark Reger, ‘Taylor, Sir Henry’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

[2] Mark Reger, ‘Taylor, Sir Henry’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

[3] Henry Taylor, Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1885) vol. I, p.201.

[4] Letter from Julia Margaret Cameron to G. F. Watts, 3 December 1860 as quoted in Constantia Nicolaides, ‘Paint him ‘great and grand’: Julia Margaret Cameron, G.F. Watts and Henry Taylor’, National Portrait Gallery, 28 May 2015.

[5] M.H. Spielmann quoted in Leonée and Richard Ormond, G.F. Watts: The Hall of Fame: Portraits of his Famous Contemporaries, (Compton, Surrey: Watts Gallery, 2012), p.19.

[6] Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts : portraits; fame & beauty in Victorian society (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004), p.35.

[7] M.H. Spielmann, G.F. Watts, R.A., O.M., as a Great Painter of Portraits: A Lecture, delivered in the Memorial Hall Manchester, 7th June 1905 (London, Sherratt & Hughes, 1905), p.24.

[8] M.H. Spielmann, G.F. Watts, R.A., O.M., as a Great Painter of Portraits: A Lecture, delivered in the Memorial Hall Manchester, 7th June 1905 (London, Sherratt & Hughes, 1905), p.24.

Further Reading:

Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts : portraits; fame & beauty in Victorian society (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004).

Constantia Nicolaides, ‘Paint him ‘great and grand’: Julia Margaret Cameron, G.F. Watts and Henry Taylor’, National Portrait Gallery, 28 May 2015.

Mark Reger, ‘Taylor, Sir Henry’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

M.H. Spielmann, G.F. Watts, R.A., O.M., as a Great Painter of Portraits: A Lecture, delivered in the Memorial Hall Manchester, 7th June 1905 (London, Sherratt & Hughes, 1905).

Henry Taylor, Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1885) vols. I and II.

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

Text by Dr Stacey Clapperton