A large and important 3/4 length portrait of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden by Frederick Richard Say
Frederick Richard Say
Portrait of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden, c.1837 by Frederick Richard Say (1804–1868)
An impressive three quarter length portrait depicting Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden, one of the most influential and controversial figures in nineteenth-century Ireland. Standing beside a table with documents relating to Protestants dated 1837, and wearing the pale blue sash and breast star of the Order of St Patrick, Roden is presented at the height of his political and social influence. The composition is one of authority and conviction, portraying a man whose name became synonymous with the Protestant cause in Ireland during a period of profound political and religious change.
The portrait was painted by Frederick Richard Say, one of the foremost portrait painters of early Victorian Britain. Say exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy and was entrusted with painting portraits of some of the most important figures of his age, including King George IV, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Prince Albert and Earl Grey. He later served as copyist to Queen Victoria, a prestigious appointment reflecting his standing within the artistic establishment. Today his work is represented in major public collections, including the National Portrait Gallery. Say attended the school that Benjamin Robert Haydon ran from 1815, a school established in direct competition to the Royal Academy. Say began exhibiting at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the British Institution in 1826, and continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy every year except 1834 until 1854, exhibiting seventy-eight paintings.
Robert Jocelyn succeeded to the Earldom of Roden in 1820 and became one of the leading Protestant aristocrats of his generation. A prominent political figure and vocal defender of the Established Church, he played a significant role in the debates surrounding Ireland during the turbulent decades preceding the Great Famine. The prominently displayed documents appear to reference the Protestant petition movement associated with Roden’s political activities during the late 1830s, helping to place the portrait within a specific and important historical moment.
Labels and Exhibition History
The reverse of the portrait retains a remarkable group of nineteenth-century labels which provide an important link to its documented history. Most significant is a surviving exhibition label naming the artist as “SAY”, together with references to the sitter consistent with Robert, 3rd Earl of Roden. Such contemporary exhibition labels are increasingly rare and provide a valuable historical association with the work. More significantly still, the label provides a contemporary identification of both artist and sitter directly on the picture itself, an increasingly uncommon survival on large nineteenth-century portraits.
A further label relates to the Dublin Exhibition of Arts, Industries and Manufactures of 1872. The official catalogue records at entry 602 a portrait of “Robert, 3rd Earl of Roden, K.P.” by Say, lent by Viscount Powerscourt, grandson of the sitter. The surviving label corresponds closely with the published catalogue entry and provides a direct connection between the present portrait and one of the most important cultural exhibitions held in nineteenth-century Ireland.
Particularly significant is the connection with the Powerscourt family. In his 1903 publication A Description and History of Powerscourt, Viscount Powerscourt specifically recorded that a portrait of his grandfather, Robert, 3rd Earl of Roden, by Say hung at Powerscourt House. The portrait therefore appears not merely in exhibition records but within the documented contents of one of Ireland’s most celebrated country houses.
The portrait also retains the fragment of an earlier paper label bearing the numeral “5”, of particular interest in light of the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue of 1838, which records at entry 535 a portrait of “The Earl of Roden, K.P.” by F. R. Say. Whilst the Royal Academy retained no dimensions for the exhibited work, the surviving label fragment, considered alongside the documentary evidence, exhibition history, contemporary engraving and family provenance, provides a compelling case that this may be the very portrait exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838.
The significance of the work is further enhanced by the existence of a contemporary mezzotint engraving by Thomas Goff Lupton after a portrait of the Earl of Roden by Frederick Richard Say, published in 1839 shortly after the Royal Academy exhibition. Lupton was among the most celebrated engravers of the period and the publication of the engraving demonstrates the importance attached to the portrait and to Roden himself during his lifetime. The engraving bears a striking resemblance to the present work and strongly suggests that this composition was regarded as the principal public image of the Earl during the late 1830s.
Large-scale aristocratic portraits with such a combination of exhibition history, family provenance and documentary evidence seldom appear on the market. The survival of multiple historic labels, a contemporary engraving, a documented connection to Powerscourt House and a likely association with the Royal Academy exhibition of 1838 combine to give the portrait an unusually complete and traceable history. Combining the portrait of a major Anglo-Irish political figure with strong Royal Academy associations and a direct connection to one of Victorian Britain’s leading portrait painters, this is a work of considerable historical presence and importance.
Viscount Powerscourt
Mervyn Edward Wingfield, 7th Viscount Powerscourt (1836–1904), grandson of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden, was one of the most significant Anglo-Irish collectors of his generation. For approximately forty years he served as a Governor of the National Gallery of Ireland and was widely recognised for both his patronage of the arts and the quality of the collection housed at Powerscourt House. Contemporary accounts record the presence of important family portraits throughout the house, whilst Powerscourt himself owned works by major European masters, including a painting then regarded as a Rembrandt. Powerscourt is himself immortalised in Henry Jamyn Brooks’s celebrated painting Private View of the Old Masters Exhibition, Royal Academy, 1888, now in the National Portrait Gallery, where he appears amongst many of the leading collectors, connoisseurs, artists and cultural figures of late Victorian Britain.
Provenance
In the possession of Lord Roden (the sitter) in 1839, almost certainly descended through the Powerscourt family following the marriage alliance between the Jocelyn and Wingfield families; recorded by Viscount Powerscourt (Roden's grandson) at Powerscourt House in 1903; exhibited Dublin Exhibition of Arts, Industries and Manufactures, 1872, lent by Viscount Powerscourt; sold by Christie’s at Powerscourt House, County Wicklow, 24th–25th September 1984 Lot 39. (the Slazenger family had obtained Powerscourt House in contents in 1961 and a number of items were sold in the 1984 sale); subsequently in a private English collection; recently acquired by Rob Hall Antiques.
Oil on canvas. Relined, historic some re-touching and cleaning. Small overpaint patch top right in background and smearing, small restoration over sitters left eyebrow. Mark top left of canvas. Remains unrestored by us. Additional images including the aforementioned.
Whilst the engraving of the Earl of Roden, which seemingly this portrait was the origin of, this portrait as a recognised work by Frederick Richard Say appears to have been out of public view since 1984 when it left Powerscourt House. A companion portrait of Roden by Say, possibly from the same sitting, was sold by a well known London dealer and it remains the single available image of Roden by Say in portrait form online, until this portrait re-emerged. Measuring: 143 x 112 cm (canvas), 163 x 129 cm (framed)
British, c.1837
