Lot 62: JOHN HOSKINS (BRITISH, D. 1664/65)

Sir Arthur Hesilrige (d. 1661), in gilt-studded armour and lawn collar, long brown hair
signed with initials and dated '1652 . IH.' (mid-right)
on vellum
oval, 2 1/2 in. (64 mm.) high, associated silver-gilt frame

Brussels, Hôtel Goffinet, Exposition de la miniature, 1912, no. 214 (lent by Lieutenant General H. F. Davies, London).

G. C. Williamson, 'La miniature anglaise', in L'exposition de la miniature à Bruxelles en 1912, Brussels/Paris, 1913, pp. 21-22: 'Peut-être, toutefois, le plus beau portrait de la vitrine était-il celui de Sir Arthur Hesilrige (N o 52, Planche en couleur XII), signé et daté de 1652 et prêté par le Général Davies. Ici le talent de dessinateur de Hoskins et l'infaillible fidélité de tous les détails expressifs du visage d'un homme sérieux sont merveilleusement réalisés. [...]', illustrated in colour pl. XII, fig. 52.
J. J. Foster, Samuel Cooper and the English Miniature Painters of the XVII Century, London, 1924-1926, p. 13, supplement volume p. 134, no. 104.
B. S. Long, British Miniaturists, London, 1929, p. 226.

Lieutenant General H. F. Davies, London (in 1912).

A handwritten note on the reverse of the miniature reads '[.....] W m. Battell M. A. of Comber Grove in the Co. of Somerset marry'd Dorothy daughter of Sir Rob. Hesilrige by which Connection he obtain'd this Portrait of Sir Arthur Hesilrige who in the civil Wars raised a Regiment of Horse called 'The Lobsters' on the side of the Parliament against Charles the 1 s t; he died in 1660, it was painted by the you[..] [..]er Hoskins of whom the there i[.] [..] n Account in Lord Orford's history of Painters, y given to L t Col. Davies MP, by Rev. W. Battell 30 May 183[.]'

Sir Arthur Hesilrige, English parliamentarian and one of the five Members of Parliament whose attempted seizure by Charles in 1642 precipitated the Civil War. He sat in the Long and Short Parliaments for his county, Leicestershire and became governor of Newcastle. He commanded a cavalry regiment known as the 'lobsters' on account of their full armour. At the Restoration his life was saved because he had refused to sign Charles I's death warrant but he was committed to the Tower of London, where he died.

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