Lot 123: Joseph Wilson

Joseph Wilson
fl.1770-1800
the adelphi club, belfast, 1783
signed l.l.: I Wilfon/Belfast
oil on canvas
61 by 75 cm., 24 by 29 1/2 in.
This rare evocation of life in eighteenth century Belfast was painted in 1783. It shows the ten members of the Adelphi Club, a literary society consisting of actors and tradesmen. Nine of the members in the picture are recorded. Taken from the left they are Andrew Cherry, the actor; an unknown member; Michael Atkins, owner and manager of the Belfast Theatre; Amyas Griffith, Surveyor; James Pinkerton, a merchant; Richard Cox Rowe, the comedian; Mr Haslett, a merchant; Thomas Gibson, a merchant; the artist; and John Bernard, the actor.
The two most prominent figures in the picture are Amyas Griffith holding a tankard and James Pinkerton who is seated facing him.
Griffith was born at Roscrea in Tipperary in 1746 and who lived in Belfast from 1780 when he was appointed Surveyor of Excise. The picture was originally owned by Griffith but he was forced to sell it because of financial problems and it was bought by James Pinkerton with whose descendants it has remained ever since.
Of the other members of the club shown, John Bernard (1756-1828) was born in Portsmouth to a naval family, but ran away from home in 1773 to join a travelling company of actors, much to his father's displeasure. He married Mrs Cooper, a member of the company, and in 1778 they became members of a company in Bath. In 1780 Bernard went to Ireland, where he remained for the next four years, and during which time this portrait was painted. He subsequently went to London, where together with his acting engagements, he was Secretary for the Beefsteak Club. In 1797 he went to America, and his farewell from the stage took place in Boston in 1819.
Andrew Cherry (1762-1812) was born in Limerick on 11th January 1762. His father, a printer and bookseller in Limerick, had intended his son to go into the church, but from an early age he showed talent as an actor and by the age of fourteen he was playing Lucia, in Addison's Cato in Dublin. Three years later he became a member of a strolling company under the management of a Mr. Martin. He then joined the company of Richard William Knipe, whose daughter he subsequently married after Knipe's death. Cherry then joined the principal provincial company of Ireland under the management of Michael Atkins (also shown in this picture). Known as 'Little Cherry', Cherry enjoyed a high reputation in Dublin for the next five or six years, before travelling to England. He returned to Dublin in 1794 for several years, before returning to England, acting in Manchester and Bath before appearing for the first time in Drury
Lane in 1802 as Sir Benjamin Dove, in Brothers of Cumberland, and Lazarillo in 'Two Strings to your Bow'. He remained in London until 1807, and in 1812 was managing a theatrical company in Wales, where he died in 1812.
In his 'Retrospections' John Bernard stated that the picture was painted by John Williams better known as Anthony Pasquin. However it is more likely that Pasquin, who is only known to have done drawings, sketched the members perhaps as a basis for the oil painting. The artist shown on the right does not look like the well known image of Pasquin by Archer Shee from c.1792 and the picture is clearly signed by Wilson who was active in Belfast at this date. R.M. Young in his book on Belfast (see below) says the picture is 'painted by J. Williams or Wilson for Mr Griffith' and this coincides with an old label on the stretcher of the picture.
Provenance:
Amyas Griffith, Excise Surveyor of Belfast;
Joseph Culloden Pinkerton, and thence by descent to the present owner
Literature:
Amyas Griffith, Miscellaneous Tracts, 1788;
John Bernard, Retrospections of the Stage, 1830, Vol.I, pp.369-370;
George Benn, History of the Town of Belfast, 1877, p.607;
R.M. Young, Belfast and the Province of Ulster, 1909, pp.97-98, illus.;
W.G. Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists, 1913, Vol II, p.533;
R.M. Lightbown, John Williams Alias Anthony Pasquin, introductory essay to Memoirs of the Royal Academicians by Anthony Pasquin, 1970, p.5;
Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, The Painters of Ireland, 1978, p.167
Subject Engraved