Lot 30: CORNELIUS JOHNSON

CORNELIUS JOHNSON LONDON 1593 - 1661 UTRECHT PORTRAITS OF JOHN HUXLEY; AND HIS WIFE, ELIZABETH TRYON, BOTH HALF LENGTH Quantity: 2 each signed and dated lower right: C. J. fecit / 1632 oil on canvas, a pair each 76 by 63.5 cm.; 30 by 25 in.

By descent from the sitters.

Born in Edmonton, Middlesex, in 1596 John was the son of George Huxley, and his wife Catherine, of Wyer Hall. On 31υst July 1626 he married Elizabeth (d.1683), daughter of Moses Tryon, High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, by whom he had nine children. A magistrate for the county of Middlesex, Huxley's portrait, and that of his wife, hung in the main hall at Wyer until the house was pulled down in 1818.

Wyer Hall had originally come into the family through the sitter's father, George, a haberdasher, who purchased the estate from Sir John Leeke in 1609. The house descended through the male line until 1743, from whence it descended through the female line to James George Tatem Esq. In 1611 Huxley's parnets carried out extensive renovations of the house, and the mantle above the chimney in the great hall bore their united arms carved in oak.

As a local magistrate Huxley performed wedding ceremonies in the porch of the Wyer Hall during the Commonwealth, however the Hall does not always appear to have had a peaceful history. When the building was demolished in 1818, as a result of extensive decay, musket balls and pistol shot were found embedded into the walls and beams, indicating that it was attacked at some point during the Civil War.