Lot 206: NEWTON, GILBERT STUART (1794-1835, known as Stuart Newton, artist,)

FOUR PORTRAITS BY SIR EDWIN LANDSEER R.A. (1802-1873),
pen and ink caricatures on two sheets of paper:
(i) head and shoulders, inscribed in another hand on the verso 'S Newton by Landseer'
(ii) full-length as a tall well-dressed dandy, in frock coat and elegant shoes, holding a top hat and cane
(iii) head only upside down at the back foot of the first portrait
(iv) three-quarter length as a spectral show-through, sizes c. 6¾ x 4 in (17.2 x 10.2 cm) and c. 5½ x 3¼ in (14 x 8.3 cm).

Stuart Newton, who was born in Halifax Nova Scotia, was a close friend of Landseer in the 1820s and 1830s. They visited Scotland with C.R. Leslie in 1824 to paint Sir Walter Scott at Chiefswood - Scott was his most famous sitter. Landseer's portrait of the novelist is in the National Portrait Gallery; Newton's is at Abbotsford. Samuel Redgrave thought Newton 'over-flowed with self-esteem' and he was known as something of a swell and wit. John Constable classed Newton and Landseer 'with the nobility' because, rather grandly, 'they have adopted their habits.' Newton had been brought up as a pupil of his uncle the American portrait painter Gilbert Stuart. Soon after his election to the Royal Academy, his mind showed signs of failing and he was confined to an asylum in Chelsea where he continued to paint until his death in 1835.

Landseer, primarily a Romantic painter of animal subjects; has some fame for his caricatures as also for his ability to paint simultaneously with both hands. In The Gems of Stuart Newton R.A., Newton is appropriately described as 'tall and well proportioned.'

The drawings come from a group by Landseer and Newton that were almost certainly done c. 1835, including portraits of Sydney Smith. Examples of Newton's work are in the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Harvard University.

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