Dr. Brian Walton (born about 1600, died 1661)

The Artist: John Hoskins was the leading painter of portrait miniatures in England between the death of Nicholas Hilliard in 1619 and the rise to preeminence of his nephew and pupil Samuel Cooper (1608?–1672) in the 1640s. Hoskins began his career as a portrait painter in oils. So far only two documented paintings in this medium by him are known. They are head-and-shoulders portraits of Sir Hamon Le Strange of Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk, and his wife, Alice; her household account book records payments for them in 1617 (Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, Portraits in Norfolk Houses, Norwich, [1927], vol. 1, p. 316, no. 15 [Alice], pp. 317–18, no. 21 [Hamon]; Andrew Moore and Charlotte Crawley, Family & Friends: A Regional Survey of British Portraiture, London, 1992, pp. 84–86, nos. 18 and 19, pls. 55 and 56). It is not known who taught Hoskins the art of limning, but his earliest miniatures, seemingly from about 1615, show resemblances to those of both Nicholas Hilliard (1547–1619) and Isaac Oliver (born about 1565, died 1617). He was greatly patronized by Charles I (1600–1649) and his court; he was influenced at that time by Daniel Mytens (1590?–1648) and then by Van Dyck (1599–1641), who settled in England in 1632. The works of the 1620s and 1630s show a variety of styles, probably due to his employment of assistants, such as his nephews Alexander Cooper (1609–?1660) and Samuel Cooper and his son John Hoskins the Younger (1620/30?–after 1692). The older Hoskins died in relative poverty in 1665. John Hoskins the Younger is known to have practiced as a limner independently from 1655, but no convincing attempts to distinguish his work from his father's have yet been made.

The Miniature: The history of this important miniature, which has had a succession of distinguished owners, can be traced to the earlier years of the eighteenth century. Its first known owner was Sir Everard Fawkener (1684–1758), a successful merchant who became in later life a diplomat. Voltaire was a friend of his and stayed in the late 1720s at his house in Wandsworth. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Fawkener spent his leisure time "in reading the classics or in collecting ancient coins and medals." As Horace Walpole (1717–1797) recorded when cataloguing his own collection, Fawkener gave the miniature to Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745); this gift may have been made at about the time Fawkener exchanged commerce for diplomacy and was knighted, that is, about 1735. Sir Robert Walpole had passed the miniature on to his son Horace by about 1743, when the English engraver and antiquary George Vertue (1684–1756) saw it in the latter's collection. It was recognized as an example of Hoskins's finest work in these earliest references, but the sitter's identity caused some confusion. On first seeing it Vertue described it as "so fresh & lively as if it had been done by Cooper" and commented "Qu. who it is," showing that any traditional identification had been lost. However, Walpole, who in 1757 had bought the notebook in which this reference occurs, made the annotation "Serj. Maynard" at this point. Vertue's second reference, made in 1745, shows that he had become aware of this identification; first writing "a Minister," he struck this out and wrote "Serj. Maynard," adding "near or full as well as if done by Cooper." Both in his list of miniatures in the Tribune at Strawberry Hill and in his Anecdotes Walpole repeated this identification, which he may have been the first to propose. He shared Vertue's admiration for the work, though with some reservations, writing in his Anecdotes: "Hoskins, though surpassed by his scholar, the young Cooper, was a very good painter: there is great truth and nature in his heads; but the carnations are too bricky, and want a degradation and variety of tints. I have a head of serjeant Maynard by him, boldly painted and in a manly style, though not without these faults."

This miniature is certainly one of the finest in the Hoskins canon. Murdoch (1979, 1981) lists it among twenty-two miniatures painted between 1645 and 1665 which he thinks may be by John Hoskins the Younger; this hypothesis has not gained widespread acceptance, and there is no reason for removing the work from the mature oeuvre of his father.

Piper (1963) discusses the identification of the sitter as the famous Restoration lawyer Sir John Maynard (1602–1690) and concludes that it is not convincing. He suggests that there are other possibilities, such as Sir John Maynard (1592–1658), the Royalist, or John Maynard (1600–1665), the divine. However, fresh light is thrown on the question by a somewhat enlarged nineteenth-century copy of the miniature in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle (Reynolds 1999, no. 92), that was listed in an inventory of 1881 as a copy after the Hoskins miniature in the Hamilton collection (The Met's work) and as a portrait of Brian Walton, D.D. (born about 1600, died 1661). Walton edited the polyglot Bible, published in six volumes between 1654 and 1657, and in 1660 was made bishop of Chester. The only recognized portrait of him is the engraving that Pierre Lombart made for the frontispiece of Walton’s Polyglot Bible, 1657 (J. Ingamells, The English Episcopal Portrait 1559–1835: A Catalogue, [New Haven], 1981, p. 400, pl. 296). There is so close a correspondence between that engraving and this miniature that they surely represent the same man. Sir Oliver Millar and Catherine MacLeod have drawn attention to a full-length portrait of the same sitter in the collection of Lord Tollemache which has been published by Ellis Waterhouse (1958, p. 11, no. 1) as of Sir John Maynard by Emmanuel de Critz, dated 1657.

[2015; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

Inscription: Signed and dated (upper left, in gold): i657· / i H ·

Sir Everard Fawkener, Wandsworth, London (given to Walpole); Sir Robert Walpole, Houghton Hall, Norfolk; his son, Horace Walpole, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham (by about 1743–d. 1797); by descent to George Edward Waldegrave, 7th Earl Waldegrave, Strawberry Hill (until 1842; his sale, Robins, Strawberry Hill, May 10, 1842, no. 16, as "Sergeant Maynard," to Botfield); Beriah Botfield, Norton Hall, Northamptonshire (1842–d. 1863); William Alexander Louis Stephen Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton, Hamilton Palace, Lanark, Scotland (until 1882; his sale, Christie's, London, July 15 and 17, 1882, no. 1599, as "Sir John Maynard," for £231 to Philpot); C. H. T. Hawkins, London (until d. 1903; his estate sale, Christie's, London, May 13, 1904, no. 902, as "John Maynard," for £140 to Durlacher); [Durlacher, London, from 1904]; J. Pierpont Morgan, London (by 1906–d. 1913; cat., vol. 1, 1906, no. 82); his son, J. P. Morgan, New York (1913–35; his sale, Christie's, London, June 24, 1935, no. 138, to Knoedler for The Met)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Four Centuries of Miniature Painting," January 19–March 19, 1950, unnumbered cat. (p. 3, as "Sir John Maynard (1602–1690)").

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 24.

New Haven. Yale Center for British Art. "Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill," October 15, 2009–January 3, 2010, no. 180.

London. Victoria and Albert Museum. "Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill," March 6–July 4, 2010, no. 180.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "In Miniature," August 29–December 28, 2014, no catalogue.

George Vertue. Notebook entry. [ca. 1743] [published in Walpole Society 26 (1937–38), p. 20], mentions seeing it in the collection of Horace Walpole, calling it a masterpiece by Hoskins, "so fresh & lively as if it had been done by Cooper; wonders about the identity of the sitter [when this notebook was in the possession of Walpole, he inserted the name "Serj. Maynard" here].

George Vertue. Notebook entry. 1745 [published in Walpole Society 26 (1937–38), p. 49], mentions it again, crossing out his original identification of the sitter as "a Minister" and substituting "Serj. Maynard".

Horace Walpole. A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill, near Twickenham; With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c. [Twickenham], 1774, p. 80, as "Serjeant Maynard; by Hoskins: given to sir R. Walpole by sir Everard Falkener".

Horace Walpole. A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill near Twickenham, Middlesex, with an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c. [Twickenham], 1784, p. 57 [facsimile: Nicolas Barker, ed., "Horace Walpole's Description of the Villa at Strawberry-Hill," (London), 2010].

Horace Walpole. The Works of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Orford. London, 1798, vol. 2, p. 473; vol. 3, p. 254, lists it at Strawberry Hill, as "Serjeant Maynard; by Hoskins: given to sir R. Walpole by sir Everard Falkener"; calls it "boldly painted and in a manly style, though not without . . . faults".

Horace Walpole. Anecdotes of Painting in England. London, 1828, vol. 2, p. 298 [reprint of Walpole 1798, vol. 3, p. 254].

G[eorge]. C. Williamson. Catalogue of the Collection of Miniatures, the Property of J. Pierpont Morgan. Vol. 1, [deluxe edition]. London, 1906, pp. 79–80, no. 82, pl. XXXIX, no. 2, colorpl. 19, as a portrait of Sir John Maynard.

G[eorge]. C. Williamson. "Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's Pictures: The English Miniatures, II." Connoisseur 17 (January 1907), p. 7, no. XXIV, ill. p. 5.

J[oshua]. J[ames]. Foster. Samuel Cooper and the English Miniature Painters of the XVII Century. London, 1914–16, p. 13.

George C. Williamson. The Miniature Collector: A Guide for the Amateur Collector of Portrait Miniatures. London, 1921, p. 57, pl. IX, no. 3.

Harry B. Wehle. "Four Famous Miniatures." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 30 (October 1935), pp. 187–89, fig. 2.

Ellis Waterhouse. The Collection of Pictures in Helmingham Hall. Helmingham Hall, 1958, p. 11, under no. 1, mentions it as "closely related" to a portrait of Sir John Maynard at Helmingham Hall.

David Piper. Catalogue of Seventeenth-Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, 1625–1714. Cambridge, 1963, p. 231, under no. 476, questions the identification of the sitter.

Leo R. Schidlof. The Miniature in Europe in the 16th, 17th, 18, and 19th Centuries. Graz, Austria, 1964, vol. 1, p. 377.

John Murdoch. Letter. 1979, attributes it to the hand responsible for a coherent group of portraits datable about 1645 to 1660 and including the miniature inscribed "Ipse" in the collection of the duke of Buccleuch, suggesting that the artist may be John Hoskins the Younger; questions whether the support is really paper.

John Murdoch in The English Miniature. New Haven, 1981, pp. 102, 217 n. 31, includes it among a group of miniatures that he attributes to John Hoskins the Younger.

Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 10, 12–13, 80, no. 24, colorpl. 24 and ill. p. 81, identify the sitter as Dr. Brian Walton based on a nineteenth-century copy in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, which is listed as a portrait of Walton in an inventory of 1881; state that the portrait at Helmingham Hall [see Ref. Waterhouse 1958] depicts the same individual.

Peter Hill. Walpole's Art Collection: Horace Walpole's Oil Paintings, Water Colours and Drawings at Strawberry Hill. Twickenham, 1997, pp. 25, 63, states that Botfield bought the picture for 21 guineas at the 1842 sale.

Katharine Baetjer. "British Portraits in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57 (Summer 1999), p. 16, ill. (color).

Graham Reynolds. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. London, 1999, p. 119, under no. 92.

Katherine Coombs in Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. Ed. Michael Snodin with the assistance of Cynthia Roman. Exh. cat., Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. New Haven, 2009, p. 183, fig. 215 (color).

Cynthia Roman with Emily Lanza in Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. Ed. Michael Snodin with the assistance of Cynthia Roman. Exh. cat., Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. New Haven, 2009, p. 319, no. 180.