Lot 40: JAMES MAUBERT 1666-1746 PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE SANCROFT (C. 1716-1780) AND HER SISTER ELIZABETH

JAMES MAUBERT 1666-1746 PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE SANCROFT (C. 1716-1780) AND HER SISTER ELIZABETH (1714-1788)

Signed l.l..: J Maubert Pinxit

Oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Probably commissioned by William Sancroft (1683-1720), the sitter's father;
Be descent to Sarah Wogan, daughter of Catherine Sancroft and John Wogan, who married the Rev. Gerva Holmes;
Thence by descent to John Sancroft Holmes (1847-1920), Gawdy Hall
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Prince Duleep Singh, Portraits in Norfolk Houses, 1927, Vol. I, p. 24, illus. opposite p. 160
CATALOGUE NOTE

The sitters were the daughters of William Sancroft of Fressingfield Hall, Suffolk and his wife Catherine, daughter of Sir John Cotton of Lenwade. The Sancrofts were a distinguished Suffolk family. William's great uncle, William Sancroft (1617-1693) was the Dean of St Paul's who masterminded the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral and who later became Archbishop of Canterbury.

The two daughters were substantial heiresses, having inherited from their father the Suffolk manors of Fressingfield, Ufford, Chepenhall and Metfield. The eldest daughter Elizabeth married John Wogan, who came from a Pembrokeshire family and owned Gawdy Hall in Norfolk, as well as a house in Wigmore Street and at Boulton in Pembrokeshire. On the death of Elizabeth and her husband, the Suffolk estates were sold and Gawdy Hall passed to the Reverend Gervas Holmes, Vicar of Fressingfield, who married Elizabeth's daughter Sarah.

According to George Vertue, the painter Maubert, who was probably born in Ireland, studied in Dublin with the Flemish artist Gaspar Smitz. This ambitious conversation piece is one of his finest works, comparable to the two portraits which he painted for the Bathurst family (one sold at Sotheby's on 23 June 1971). He was admired by Vertue, particularly for his ability to paint flowers - 'a good Ingenious civil man... he not only paints from the Life but is very skillful in painting of fruits & flowers. his draperys are well dispos'd & natural'.' (George Vertue's Notebooks, Walpole Society. Vol. XXII, 1934, p. 28).

122 by 144.8cm., 48 by 57in.