In today's "Tale from Watnall Hall" we discover another gem of a book from Watnall Hall's long lost library. It's an Age of Enlightenment classic from 1757 called "The Description and Use of the Globes and Orrery" by Joseph Harris. It shows Watnall Hall's links to the fledgling local Enlightenment "scene" of science-based art, astronomy, map-making and the crafts of watchmaking and mathematical instrument making, all part of the so-called Midlands Enlightenment. We end by comparing this book's 18th century orrery to a mind-boggling complex one found on a 2000 year old shipwreck from ancient Greece...
The "Age of Enlightenment" was a period from about 1680 to 1820 where science and reason took over from religion and superstition as the chief movers of art, politics and philosophy. Owning a book about "the Globes and Orrey" shows Watnall was certainly no enlightenment backwater. The Great Orrery in the book was a precision-made scientific model of the solar system made from interlocked brass gears and dials. It relied on the new precision watch-making technologies and science breakthroughs of the time.
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| The front illustration from "The Description and Use of the Globes and Orrery" |
The "Great Orrery" shown in the painting below (by Joseph Wright of Derby) was very similar if not the very same as in the Watnall Hall book. The painting itself also demonstrates the new scientific and mathematical approach to art. It was commissioned for, painted by and features in it, members of the circle of friends of the Watnall Hall Rolleston family. In particular we'll look:
- the Rolleston's marriage into the Burdett family of Foremark Hall in Derbyshire,
- their links to painter Joseph Wright of Derby (who did the painting below)
- their links to painter Joseph Wright of Derby (who did the painting below)
- their links to ground-breaking surveyor and map-maker Peter Perez Burdett (who is featured in it)
- their close ties with the Mundys of Markeaton Hall (who commissioned Wright's works of art)
- their ties to Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, influential scientist and politician.
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| Joseph Wright of Derby's remarkably realistic 1766 "candlelight" painting of the Great Orrery. The candle takes the place of the sun as the lecturer explains the calculation of "Longitude". Mathematician and map-maker Peter Perez Burdett (shown on the left taking notes) helped Wright calculate correct shadow angles and perspective in his paintings. The man to the right is thought to be Washington Shirley, the Earl of Ferrers who Burdett stayed with at Staunton Harold and who commissioned the painting. |
The Painting of the Great Orrery
Peter Perez Burdett (1733-93) and Joseph Wright (1734-97) were both living in Derby in the 1760's. Burdett was the brains behind the photo-realistic style of Wright's new and dramatically-lit series of scientific paintings. All of Wright's original and ambitious "candle-light" paintings can be attributed in part to the mathematical skill and understanding of shadow-play and perspective of the less-well-remembered Burdett. Wright's paintings before and after his collaborations with Perez never quite reached the same heights of genius. Both men were under the patronage of the local Mundy and Burdett families (Peter Perez Burdett was a distant cousin) and Earl Ferrers of Staunton Harold Hall.
The location of the lecture depicted in Wright's painting above appears to be the Library in Staunton Harold, the seat of Washington Shirley, who became the 5th Earl Ferrers (1722-1778) after his infamous elder brother was executed for murdering a retainer (the last peer of the realm to be hanged). Ferrers, a Naval officer, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1761 having designed and commissioned a "Transitarium" to model the transit of Venus from Benjamin Cole in Fleet Street, which he presented to the Royal Society.
The Watnall Hall book
The instrument in the painting is identical to the Great Orrery made by Benjamin Cole's master Thomas Wright and is the same one that appears in the Watnall Hall book. Cole took over when Wright retired. He made orreries for £250, a fortune back then and c.£50,000 today.
The pointing fingers of the Philosopher and his little girl indicate that subject of the lecture was the observation of the eclipses of the moons of Jupiter which at the time constituted the only reliable way of establishing longitude. John Harrison's famous "Longitude H4" mariner's watch, another marvellous example of micro engineering, was invented in 1759 and later versions officially adopted to calculate longitude on ships in 1773.
The "Philosopher" depicted is possibly John Arden (a four times great grandfather of the famous playwright of the same name). Having been disinherited by his family, Arden set himself up as a teacher of practical mathematics and experimental philosophy near to the house where Wright was brought up. In later years he took his teachings on the road and is shown to have been teaching in Derby on several occasions.
Several similar lectures took place in the area around the same time and it's likely that Watnall Hall's interest in orreries stems from attendance at one or more of them.
The book itself makes an excellent teaching aid and is dedicated to the London orrery makers Cole, Wright and Cushee. Perhaps then, it is more of a sales catalogue/instruction manual than a serious study of the science and so perhaps an indication of the Watnall Hall book owner's interest in learning how to use the instrument. The book was sold at the Fleet Street shop of the orrery makers too. In it they boast of their sales to such prestigious customers as "His Majesty at Kensington, the Duke of Argyll and the New Royal Academy at Portsmouth". It is beautifully illustrated with pull-out diagrams...
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| A pull-out illustration from the Watnall Hall book |
Thanks to our own modern technology, the Internet Archive's Open Library, we can still "virtually" browse many of the books from Watnall Hall's long lost library including the one which is the subject of this article by clicking here. The Watnall Hall library was built up over several centuries by several members of the Rolleston family but lost in 1954 when the hall and its contents were auctioned off. In previous articles we've looked at the auction itself and various paintings and books from it.
There were two paintings by Joseph Wright in the Watnall Hall auction although they are difficult to identify exactly from Wright's back catalogue. They were listed as :
- 251 A Portrait of a young girl seated in a landscape, holding a spaniel dog 33" x 40"
- 251 A Portrait of a young girl seated in a landscape, holding a spaniel dog 33" x 40"
- 266 A Portrait of a gentleman in a dark coat 25" x 30"
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| John Harrison's remarkable H4 Longitude watch |
Burdett's Survey of Derbyshire
Joseph Wright's friend and collaborator, Peter Perez Burdett "the ingenious mathematician" was a remarkable character, capable of successfully turning his hand to many Age of Enlightenment tasks. His father was a "mathematical instrument maker" and young Peter acquired skills not only in this but in multiple fields - maths, music, astronomy, aquatint engraving, surveying, map-making. It was in the later two that he left his legacy. In 1762 he started work on the first mathematically-accurate survey of the county of Derbyshire and his resulting map won him a Royal Society prize.
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| Harrison's timekeeping mechanism dated 1759 |
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| Peter Perez Burdett and wife Hannah at Knowle Hill estate, Derbyshire Painted by his pal and collaborator Joseph Wright. Perez was a Freemason and many of these Wright portraits have subtle clues and hidden meanings. The reversed telescope alludes to his surveying but why is it pointing at him? Below - his calculations were very proudly displayed on his map. |
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| Watnall sneaks onto the side of Perez's ground-breaking and highly accurate map of the county of Derbyshire from 1767 |
In the early 1760's Watnall Hall was inherited by the young heir Launcelot Rolleston. He'd been born and brought up at Aston-on-Trent across the river in Derbyshire. Launcelot's father was the Reverend John Rolleston (1706-1770), vicar of Aston-on-Trent, who married Dorothy daughter of his neighbour Sir Robert Burdett of Foremark Hall. When John's eldest brother died without issue he inherited both the Watnall and Toynton family estates and these passed to Launcelot on his father's death. His younger brothers Christopher and Robert moved to London and established themselves as successful merchants trading with the American Colonies. Robert's business partner John Sargent was Benjamin Franklin's banker in England and remained a close friend all through the War of Independence. Franklin was living in England between 1757 and 1775 and was a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a leading Midlands Enlightenment group, members of which he visited several times on his trips around the country.
This splendid portrait of the twenty-five year old Launcelot Rolleston was one of a group of portraits of six Derbyshire friends, painted by Joseph Wright c.1762-1763. Known as the Markeaton Hunt portraits they were commissioned from Wright by Launcelot's cousin Francis Mundy to hang at Markeaton Hall, an imposing house on the outskirts of Derby which he had recently inherited. The portraits remained at the house from the early 1760's until they were sold in 1936 by a descendant of Francis Mundy. They are widely considered to be a landmark in the artist's career when he moved from being a competent pupil of Thomas Hudson to one of the ablest and most original painters in England.
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| Launcelot Rolleston c.1762 aged about 25. It shows him in full Markeaton Hunt livery. Wright's portraits hold subtle clues and coded meanings. The riding crop looks a bit like a telescope (a favoured Wright symbol) pointing at his heart which has been speculated to mean an introspective soul. |
The Markeaton Hunt was probably a private pack of hounds as no trace of it can be found in any early record of hunting in Derbyshire. Each sitter is depicted in a specially devised hunt livery, consisting of a blue velvet coat, a scarlet waistcoat and yellow breeches. It is clear that the six sitters shared more than a passion for hunting. A brief examination of the six sitters shows them to be linked by close family ties.
The Papplewick Coursing, from Watnall...
My master Noon and Marton 'Squire
Left Rolleston's comfortable fire
After good eating, drinking, sleeping
(Upon my word there's brave housekeeping.)
Spite of rough roads and eastern fogs
To try the stoutness of their dogs;
They ride, they shout; you'd think it thunder'd;
Then damn their bloods and bet five hundred... [full version below]
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The portrait of Rolleston hung together with the other five portraits at Markeaton Hall where they remained in the the collection of the descendants until 1936. The set was purchased by a descendant of Francis Mundy who sold them in 1975. The portraits were all framed in rare papier-mache frames with elegant Rococo motifs (see Paul Mitchell, Wright's Picture Frames, article in the Tate Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1990, p. 275). There were very few craftsmen capable of doing such work and it seems that the frames must have been made in London.
The Antikythera Mechanism - as a footnote to all this "pioneering" Age of Enlightenment achievement and endeavour, it's worth noting that orreries and precision scientific instruments have a fascinating history dating back an astonishingly long time. Perhaps we have just forgotten quite how advanced ancient civilisations really were. The ancient Greeks from c.200 BC produced a mind-blowingly complex analogue calculator driven by intricate gearing that modelled the known universe, eclipses and planetary motion. Discovered in a 2000 year old shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901 the "Antikythera Mechanism" seems like it came from alien technology. It was in fact based on Babylonian knowledge of the movements of the stars and planets. Only with recent advances in 21st century X-Ray scanning technology have we been able to pick apart the Mechanism and recreate it³. BBC Radio 4 recently did a Melvyn Bragg "In Our Time" program on the Mechanism, which is a fantastic discussion of it and at the end they all have a cup of tea!
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| Above - A recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek calculator to predict movement of the planets. Below - as it was originally found in 1901 |
Notes and Sources
1 - The book itself has been scanned and digitized and is freely available to read on the Internet using the Open Library website. Simply click here to open it up for yourself.
"Joseph Harris, The Description and use of the Globes and Orrery. … The Sixth Edition. London: Printed for Thomas Wright, mathematical instrument-maker, at the Orrery near Water-Lane, and E. Chushee, globe-maker, at the Globe and Sun, between St. Dunstan’s Church and Chancery Lane, both in Fleet-Street. 1745."
2 - Peter Perez Burdett - The Adventures and Speculations of the Ingenious Peter Perez Burdett - Stephen Leach
Link to the Cambridge Edition https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-9217-9
Mr Burdett, map maker and … - https://oldroadsofderbyshire.com/2023/07/12/mr-burdett-map-maker-and/
Burdett's house in Derby - https://www.countryimagesmagazine.co.uk/lost_houses/the-lost-houses-of-derbyshire-burdetts-house-full-street-derby/
Orrery painting https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/property-of-a-lady-f-joseph-wright-of-derby-a-r-a-83-c-dpl4tk6fb6
The survey method - "Burdett's first task, after checking the accuracy of his instruments, was to establish a baseline between two permanent landmarks. It was imperative that this distance be measured with the utmost care, for if there was any inaccuracy in the measurement of this distance, it would be carried over to all subsequent measurements. His baseline is shown on the map's inset. It runs between Derby and Crich Cliff and it is measured at 11.974 miles. The only other mileage marked on the diagram of workings is the mileage from Hardwick Hall to Lincoln Minster, 33.17 miles. All of the other figures on the map are angles, measured either directly or indirectly from either end of the baseline. The highest point in the centre of Derby, upon which Burdett would have set up his theodolite, was on the tower of All Saints Church. Carrying the theodolite and its stand up the spiral staircase would not have been easy but, bearing in mind the panorama from the top of the tower (178 feet high), he would have regarded this as a very minor inconvenience. A day of fine weather would have been essential for, as anyone familiar with the tower can confirm, if there is only a slight breeze the tower can be felt to sway. However, on a clear day without any breeze, the tower of All Saints' Church would have been the ideal starting point from which to begin to measure the base line.
There is only one obvious landmark to sight onto at Crich Cliff, and that is Crich Stand. This tower still exists, though it has several times been rebuilt. It is now made of stone, but in 1762 it was a wooden tower and relatively new, probably built to commemorate the accession of George III in October 1760. At the start of the project, Burdett would have required at least one assistant. They would have used ranging rods and a surveyor's chain ('Gunter's chain') of 66 feet (made up of 100 steel links, each 7.92 inches long) to measure the exact distance between All Saints' and Crich Stand crossing the Derwent several times in the process. That the measurement is given as a decimal rather than the more customary miles and furlongs etc. is slightly unexpected but, as there are only 8 furlongs in a mile and the first figure after the decimal point is a 9-11.974 miles, the evidence seems unequivocal. Using Ordnance Survey maps, Harley Fowkes and Harvey measure the distance between the two points as 11.75 miles, implying "an error of no more than about 2%" (Harley, Fowkes and Harvey 1975). Using Google Earth, I measure the distance as 11.74 miles. Although its establishment would have been a slow and laborious business, Burdett would have personally overseen the measurement of this baseline, for its accurate measurement was crucial to the entire venture. He would also have chosen, or at least approved, the triangulation points throughout the county. This would have involved him approaching all of the major Derbyshire landowners, for it would be necessary to criss-cross the county from one major landmark to the next without being charged with trespass. At the same time, he would have tried to enlist them as subscribers." - Leach
Links with Benjamin Franklin - Franklin lived in England between 1757 and 1775 and knew both Perez Burdett and John Sargent, his banker and the long-term business partner of Christopher and Robert Rolleston, London merchants originating from Watnall Hall.
From Benjamin Franklin to Peter P. Burdett, 21 August 1773
To Peter P. Burdett
ALS: Yale University Library; mutilated draft: American Philosophical Society
Burdett is one of the shadowy figures who often appear on the periphery of Franklin’s circle. He lived in Derby for a time, where he was a good friend of Joseph Wright, the painter, and of John Whitehurst, the clock-maker and Franklin’s acquaintance for many years.7 Burdett first made a name for himself as a cartographer; he won a prize in 1767 for a map of Derbyshire, and some years later did the initial work on a notable map of Cheshire. In 1769 he surveyed a route for the projected Leeds and Liverpool canal, and for the next five years he lived in Liverpool. His interests were shifting to the graphic arts: he was the founder and first president of a local academy of painting and sculpture and contributed to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, of which he was an honorary fellow. He was the pioneer in the use of aquatint in England, and developed a process for transferring aquatint engravings to pottery. He was soon experimenting with this discovery; he offered it to Frederick of Prussia and, more practically, to the Wedgwoods, who attempted for almost a year and a half to utilize his invention and then, in March of 1773, abandoned it.8 That recent setback may well have led Burdett to consider emigrating to America as a surveyor to lay out canals, an idea that he must have broached in the missing letter that Franklin is answering. But the idea, like the earlier invention, died aborning. In 1774 Burdett, plagued by creditors, left for the Continent; there he entered the service of the Markgraf of Baden, who was delighted to find that he knew Franklin and promptly forwarded, through him, an invitation to the American to take up residence in Baden.9 Burdett died in Karlsruhe in 1793.
London, Augt. 21. 1773.Sir,
I find here on coming to Town your Favour of the 10th Instant. I should think a Man of your Talents a great Acquisition to the Colonies, if we could make it worth your while to remove thither. No Country, certainly, is better fitted by Nature to receive Advantage from the Arts of making Rivers navigable, and forming extensive Communications by means of short Canals between their Branches: But as yet I doubt whether their Population and internal Commerce are sufficient to bear the Expence. Mr. Ballandine, however, may in this Respect be better informed than I am. As yet there has been no Meeting of those concern’d in the intended new Colony, and I apprehend that when they have obtain’d their Patent, their first Cares must be of another kind. But since I am acquainted with your Willingness to engage in such Undertakings, on proper Encouragement, I shall omit no Opportunity of doing Justice to your Character wherever my Opinion may have any Weight, and with the more Pleasure as I am persuaded that in serving you I shall serve my Country.1
I should be glad to be inform’d where I can see some Sample of your new Art of Printing in Imitation of Paintings. It must be a most valuable Discovery.2 With great Esteem, I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant
B Franklin
Mr Burdet
Addressed: To / Mr P. P. Burdett / at / Liverpool / B Free Franklin
[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]
7. Burdett undoubtedly carried the letter from Whitehurst to BF printed above, XIV, 41; in that case BF had by now known him for at least six years.
8. See Ann Finer and George Savage, eds., The Selected Letters of Josiah Wedgwood (London, [1965]), pp. 115–20. The best résumé of Burdett’s career is in the introduction by John B. Harley and Paul Laxton to a modern facsimile reprint of the Cheshire map, A Survey of the County Palatine of Chester: P. P. Burdett, 1777, Historic Soc. of Lancs. and Cheshire, occasional ser., I (1974), 2–7; we are indebted to Dr. Harley for reviewing our headnote. See also Sir Henry T. Wood, A History of the Society of Arts … (London, 1913), p. 300; Algernon Graves, The Society of Artists of Great Britain … [and] the Free Society of Artists … (London, 1907), p. 43; Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby … (2 vols., New Haven, [1971]), I, 117–18; E. Rimbault Dibdin, “Liverpool Art and Artists in the Eighteenth Century,” Vol. of the Walpole Soc., VI (1917–18), 65–6, 78.
9. Burdett to BF below, Dec. 15, 1774.
1. Burdett had apparently suggested that he was equipped to lay out navigable waterways in the vast tract that the Walpole Co. hoped to acquire. Although BF rejected this idea, another may have been in the back of his mind: that Burdett could be useful in designing the canals of which BF’s Philadelphia friends were dreaming. See above, XIX, 157–8, 278–9. John Ballendine, a Virginian, had come to England to study canals and locks, and had published in London proposals for opening the Potomac; his schemes died when he returned to America in 1774, and he reverted to his old trade of ironmaster. See [George Armoroyd,] A Connected View of the Whole Internal Navigation of the United States … (Philadelphia, 1830), pp. 208–14; Corra Bacon-Foster, “Early Chapters in the Development of the Potomac Route to the West …,” Columbia Hist. Soc. Records, XV (1912), 117–23; Kathleen Bruce, Virginia Iron Manufacture in the Slave Era … (New York, [1931]), pp. 42–50; Randolph W. Church, “John Ballendine …,” Va. Cavalcade, VIII, No. 4 (1959), 39–46; [Fairfax Harrison,] Landmarks of Old Prince William … (2 vols., Richmond, 1924), II, 427–9, 435–6, 540, 556.
2. “But more likely to meet with adequate Encouragement,” BF added in his draft, “on this Side the Water than on ours.” In part, perhaps, because BF omitted this qualification in the ALS, Burdett responded by sending him samples of his work; see BF’s acknowledgment of them below, Nov. 3. Burdett never did receive adequate encouragement, as mentioned in the headnote; and his work was so far forgotten that Paul Sandby later received credit for having introduced the aquatint process into England in 1774. William Sandby, Thomas and Paul Sandby … (London, 1892), pp. 135–6.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0198
Puttenham survey
3 - The Antikythera Mechanism
BBC In Our Time program
Released On: 14 Nov 2024 Available for over a year
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze object, the purpose of which was not at first clear. It turned out to be one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology. Over time, researchers worked out that it was some kind of astronomical analogue computer, the only one to survive from this period as bronze objects were so often melted down for other uses. In recent decades, detailed examination of the Antikythera Mechanism using the latest scientific techniques indicates that it is a particularly intricate tool for showing the positions of planets, the sun and moon, with a complexity and precision not surpassed for over a thousand years.
With
Mike Edmunds Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University
Jo Marchant Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera Mechanism
And Liba Taub Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsches Museum, Munich
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Reading list:
Derek de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism (American Philosophical Society Press, 1974)
M. G. Edmunds, ‘The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe’ (Contemp. Phys. 55, 2014)
M.G. Edmunds, ’The Mechanical Universe’ (Astronomy & Geophysics, 64, 2023)
James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren, Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy (Princeton University Press, 2006)
T. Freeth et al., ‘Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism’ (Nature 454, 2008)
Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s First Computer (Windmill Books, 2009)
J.H. Seiradakis and M.G. Edmunds, ‘Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism’ (Nature Astronomy 2, 2018)
Liba Taub, Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2022)
- Wright's painting
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA638610563&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=14672006&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ead37ba1c&aty=open-web-entry
Life and works
The Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery - the rediscovery of the life and career of John Arden of Derby. Bath, and Beverley (2nd edition) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348622006_The_Philosopher_Lecturing_on_the_Orrery_-_the_rediscovery_of_the_life_and_career_of_John_Arden_of_Derby_Bath_and_Beverley_2nd_edition
Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1794) and natural philosophy: A new perspective on his artistic intentions
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26450358?read-now=1&seq=11#page_scan_tab_contents
- Launcelot painting
PROVENANCE
Commissioned by Francis Noel Clarke Mundy (1739-1815) and listed in the artist's account book as 'Mr Rolleston half length, £12.12' among portraits of 1762-1765;
By descent from Francis Mundy to the Reverend William Gilchrist Clark-Maxwell, Markeaton Hall, his sale, Christie's, 15th May 1936, lot 24, bt. Major Godfrey Miller-Mundy for £105;
Thence by descent to his son Major Edward Miller-Mundy, his sale Christie's, 20th June 1975, lot 151, bt. Leggatt for 5,000 gns on behalf of the present owner, a direct descendant of the sitter
EXHIBITED
Derby Town Hall c. 1762-1763;
Corporation Art Gallery, Derby, Wright of Derby, 1934, no. 90
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES
Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby, Painter of Light, 1968, Vol. 1, pp. 2, 17, 28, 97 and 219; Vol II, plate 36;
Judy Egerton, Wright of Derby, catalogue for the Tate Gallery exhibition, 1990, p. 38
CATALOGUE NOTE
This splendid portrait of the twenty-five year old Launcelot Rolleston was one of a group of portraits of six Derbyshire friends, painted by Wright in c. 1762-1763. Known as the Markeaton Hunt portraits they were commissioned by Francis Mundy to hang at Markeaton Hall, an imposing house on the outskirts of Derby which he had recently inherited. The portraits remained at the house from the early 1760's until they were sold in 1936 by a descendant of Francis Mundy. They are widely considered to be a landmark in the artist's career when he moved from being a competent pupil of Thomas Hudson to one of
the ablest and most original painters in England.
Wright's grounding as an artist had been sound but nothing in his early work suggested that he could suddenly produce a set of portraits of such outstanding quality. As Benedict Nicolson commented in his improtant survey of Wright's work: 'an attempt must be made to account for the speed of this progress from the mannequins of 1760 to the men and women of flesh and blood of 1762-3'. At the early age of seventeen Wright travelled to London to work with Thomas Hudson. He stayed in Hudson's studio for two years, returning again in 1756 for another fifteen months. Hudson was still considered to be the most fashionable portrait painter in London, and Wright was well schooled in the painting of drapery, and the use of certain stock compositions. As a result his portraits on his return from his second trip to London are very professional, with particularly fine drapery, but have a stiffness not found in his later portraits. The Markeaton Hunt portraits mark a remarkable change of approach, and Benedict Nicolson has pointed to the influence of George Stubbs and particularly to Thomas Frye, whose series of mezzotint portraits, published in 1760 and 1761, seem to have influenced Wright not only in his portraits but also in his celebrated subject pictures.
The inspiration behind the commission from the young Francis Mundy must certainly have come from the existence of an earlier group of portraits of five Oxford friends painted by Arthur Devis in 1749, one of the sitters being Mundy's father, Wrightson Mundy. The Mundy family had owned the manors of Markeaton and Mackworth for over two hundred years. They had been bought in 1516 by John Mundy, Lord Mayor of London in 1522, and the family subsequently acquired estates in Leicestershire. Wrightson Mundy, a friend of Addison, Steele and Swift, was M.P. for Leicestershire and rebuilt Markeaton Hall in 1755. He married Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Burdett Bt. of Foremark Hall near Derby,and a member of another Derbyshire family. Their son Francis who commissioned the portraits from Wright was educated at New College, Oxford, and acquired a taste for poetry. He was attracted to the Lichfield circle where he befriended Anna Seward who, with Erasmus Darwin, encouraged him to publish his poems. He inherited Markeaton Hall from his father on 18th June 1762 and soon afterwards commissioned the portraits of himself and his friends to hang there.
Launcelot Rolleston, the sitter in this portrait, was the descendant of an old Staffordshire family. Henry de Rolleston settled in the county in 1100 and branches subsequently moved to Ireland and to Lea Hall and Ashover, Derbyshire. In the sixteenth century Ralph Rolleston married Margaret, daughter of Sir Richard Bingham of Watnall Chaworth in Nottinghamshire, thus inheriting the Watnall estates. They later acquired Toynton, another Nottinghamshire estate. Launcelot's father was the Reverend John Rolleston (1706-1770), visar of Aston-on-Trent, who married Dorothy daughter of his neighbour Sir Robert Burdett of Foremark Hall, Derbyshire. When his eldest brother died without issue John Rolleston inherited both Watnall and Toynton, and these passed to Launcelot on his father's death. Launcelot served as High Sherrif of Nottinghamshire in 1781
Dimensions
127 by 101.5 cm., 50 by 40 in.
Artist or Maker
Joseph (1734) Wright
The Burdetts - https://www.thetrentvalley.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-Burdett-Family-and-Anchor-Church-Finlay-Mosley-1.pdf
Hunting links between Rolleston and the wider south Derbyshire hunts
Launcelot Rolleston was evidently well connected to the Markeaton Hunt members but there is also evidence of links to the wider south Derbyshire hunt scene in partcular the Calke Abbey family the Harpur Crewes of the Quarndon and Calke Hunts. Sir Henry Harpur Crewe was Master of The Hunt at Calke and his Huntsman was William Stansby. This is from the Ticknall Life website...
"William Stansby was born in Morley, Derbyshire in 1765 to Thomas and Ann. As was increasingly common in those days, Thomas and Ann had married only 4 months before on 4 December 1764. They were mainly a farming family; William’s career path kept him working in the countryside, but more on the Equine side. We find him in Greasley, Notts where he married Susannah Rippon in 1800. Their first 4 children were born there too. I have a sneaking suspicion that he was working at nearby Watnall Hall for Launcelot Rolleston, who was a keen Huntsman and hunted with the Markeaton Hunt. Launcelot died in 1802 and William first appeared in the Calke Steward’s Account books in 1807, but it’s possible he was here before then.[6] We are fortunate to have an early likeness of William in a painting residing in the Library with William standing with ‘Sheepface’ one of Sir Henry’s hunters."
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| William Stansby with ‘Sheepface’, one of Sir Henry’s hunters. Image courtesy the National Trust. |
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