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Portraits of George Dance the Younger
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Portraits of George Dance the Younger
Notes
Perhaps the finest portrait of Dance is a head-and-shoulders oil painting commissioned by his son Lt.-Colonel Sir Charles Dance from Sir Thomas Lawrence (1779-1830) in about 1800 to 1805. It was sold anonymously at Christie's (8 May 1913, lot 98) by a Miss Dance and bought by Erik Frissell, whose son sold it to the Corporation of London in 1955 (Guildhall Art Gallery, inv.no.1516).
Sir George Beaumont commissioned a half-length portrait in oils from John Jackson (1778-1831) that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1819 and engraved in mezzotint the following year by Samuel W. Reynolds (1773-1835), who also engraved some of the portraits drawn by Dance himself. Jackson also painted John Soane in Masonic Dress (1829) and in 1831 a posthumous portrait of Mrs Soane based on a sketch by John Flaxman and miniature portrait by William Dance (both in the Soane Museum). Jackson's portrait of George Dance is in the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester. Samuel Angell (1847, p.335) noted 'a third [portrait] by Hilton, which was also engraved' but this has not been traced.
The pencil portrait reproduced as the frontispiece to Dorothy Stroud's George Dance, architect, 1741-1825 is inscribed 'Geo Dance RA Oct 1814' and was long considered a self-portrait. It is now thought to have been drawn by George Henry Harlow (1787-1819). It is in the National Portrait Gallery.
The double portrait of George Dance aged about 12 with his sister Hester (Stroud fig.2) is now thought to be by their brother Nathaniel Dance. Made before his departure for Italy in 1754, it is his earliest known work and (1977) is in the collection of Miss Hester Smith (descendant of Hester Smith née Dance).
Of self-portraits, there is one drawn in profile, purchased by the Ashmolean Museum in 1947, signed and dated 'Sept 13th 1795 / Geo: Dance'. Another was recently acquired by the Holbourne Museum of Art, Bath. A pencil and red crayon portrait of Dance aged 52, attributed to William Daniell after Nathaniel Dance and on paper watermarked 1804, is in the National Portrait Gallery together with the corresponding print inscribed 'delt Nathl Dance April 1793' and engraved in 1825.
John Charles Felix Rossi (1762-1839) exhibited a plaster bust of George Dance at the Royal Academy in 1825, as 'Bust of the late George Dance, R.A. to be executed in marble'. The following year he exhibited a 'Marble bust of the late George Dance, R.A.'. In the Royal Academy's Collection there is a marble signed and dated 'C. Rossi R.A. / 1827'. In the article on Dance in the Architectural Publication Society's Dictionary of architecture (1859-92) a bust of George Dance by Rossi, 1826, was said to be in the possession of the Poynder family. A plaster bust of Dance, dated 1826, is on the staircase of Soane's Museum (13 Lincoln's Inn Fields) and is recorded in the inventory of 1837. Interestingly, Rossi chose the Neo-Classical form of a herm 'in which the head is carved frontally, square with the block of marble, rather than the later Roman imperial type of bust, in which the head can be set at an angle to the torso' (Irwin, 1979, p.186). Flaxman had chosen that form for a bust of Thomas Hope which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802. he used the same form for the posthumous bust of John Hunter, surgeon and anatomist, commissioned by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800 and completed in 1805. The forerunners are three small terracotta heads (by Flaxman and not dated) that now rest on the black marble fireplace of the Breakfast Parlour in the Soane Museum.
LITERATURE. S. Angell, 'Sketch of the professional life of George Dance', Builder, v, 1847, pp.333-5; (Lawrence) K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, p.11, reproduced fig.234; (Jackson) H. C. Morgan, 'The Life and work of John Jackson', unpublished thesis, 1956 (copy in National Portrait Gallery Library); (Harlow) M. Rogers, 'The "Self-portrait" of George Dance the Younger', Georgian Group Journal, 1993, pp.99-100; (Holland) D. Goodreau, Nathaniel Dance 1735-1811, catalogue of an exhibition at Kenwood, 1977, passim; (Rossi) R. Gunnis, Dictionary of British sculptors 1660-1851, 2nd ed. [1964]; D. Irwin, John Flaxman 1755-1826, 1979.
Sir George Beaumont commissioned a half-length portrait in oils from John Jackson (1778-1831) that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1819 and engraved in mezzotint the following year by Samuel W. Reynolds (1773-1835), who also engraved some of the portraits drawn by Dance himself. Jackson also painted John Soane in Masonic Dress (1829) and in 1831 a posthumous portrait of Mrs Soane based on a sketch by John Flaxman and miniature portrait by William Dance (both in the Soane Museum). Jackson's portrait of George Dance is in the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester. Samuel Angell (1847, p.335) noted 'a third [portrait] by Hilton, which was also engraved' but this has not been traced.
The pencil portrait reproduced as the frontispiece to Dorothy Stroud's George Dance, architect, 1741-1825 is inscribed 'Geo Dance RA Oct 1814' and was long considered a self-portrait. It is now thought to have been drawn by George Henry Harlow (1787-1819). It is in the National Portrait Gallery.
The double portrait of George Dance aged about 12 with his sister Hester (Stroud fig.2) is now thought to be by their brother Nathaniel Dance. Made before his departure for Italy in 1754, it is his earliest known work and (1977) is in the collection of Miss Hester Smith (descendant of Hester Smith née Dance).
Of self-portraits, there is one drawn in profile, purchased by the Ashmolean Museum in 1947, signed and dated 'Sept 13th 1795 / Geo: Dance'. Another was recently acquired by the Holbourne Museum of Art, Bath. A pencil and red crayon portrait of Dance aged 52, attributed to William Daniell after Nathaniel Dance and on paper watermarked 1804, is in the National Portrait Gallery together with the corresponding print inscribed 'delt Nathl Dance April 1793' and engraved in 1825.
John Charles Felix Rossi (1762-1839) exhibited a plaster bust of George Dance at the Royal Academy in 1825, as 'Bust of the late George Dance, R.A. to be executed in marble'. The following year he exhibited a 'Marble bust of the late George Dance, R.A.'. In the Royal Academy's Collection there is a marble signed and dated 'C. Rossi R.A. / 1827'. In the article on Dance in the Architectural Publication Society's Dictionary of architecture (1859-92) a bust of George Dance by Rossi, 1826, was said to be in the possession of the Poynder family. A plaster bust of Dance, dated 1826, is on the staircase of Soane's Museum (13 Lincoln's Inn Fields) and is recorded in the inventory of 1837. Interestingly, Rossi chose the Neo-Classical form of a herm 'in which the head is carved frontally, square with the block of marble, rather than the later Roman imperial type of bust, in which the head can be set at an angle to the torso' (Irwin, 1979, p.186). Flaxman had chosen that form for a bust of Thomas Hope which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802. he used the same form for the posthumous bust of John Hunter, surgeon and anatomist, commissioned by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800 and completed in 1805. The forerunners are three small terracotta heads (by Flaxman and not dated) that now rest on the black marble fireplace of the Breakfast Parlour in the Soane Museum.
LITERATURE. S. Angell, 'Sketch of the professional life of George Dance', Builder, v, 1847, pp.333-5; (Lawrence) K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, p.11, reproduced fig.234; (Jackson) H. C. Morgan, 'The Life and work of John Jackson', unpublished thesis, 1956 (copy in National Portrait Gallery Library); (Harlow) M. Rogers, 'The "Self-portrait" of George Dance the Younger', Georgian Group Journal, 1993, pp.99-100; (Holland) D. Goodreau, Nathaniel Dance 1735-1811, catalogue of an exhibition at Kenwood, 1977, passim; (Rossi) R. Gunnis, Dictionary of British sculptors 1660-1851, 2nd ed. [1964]; D. Irwin, John Flaxman 1755-1826, 1979.
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Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.
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