Beschreibung:

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (British, 1794-1847)Robert Kennedy Nuttall, 1840-44 housed in original frame watercolour over pencil 19.0 x 15.0cm (7 1/2 x 5 7/8in).FootnotesPROVENANCE Robert Kennedy Nuttall, Tasmania thence by descent within the Nuttall Family (copy of original label attached verso) Private collection, United States of America LITERATURE Andrew Motion, Wainewright the Poisoner, Faber and Faber, London, 2000, pp. 239, 246, 252, 258, 262, 267, 270 Jane Stewart, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright Paradise Lost, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmania, 2021, p. 181 (illus.) A copy of the original handwritten label is attached verso. The label is initialled and in the hand of George Henry Falkiner Nuttall, Robert Kennedy's son Robert Kennedy Nuttall MD (Aberdeen) L.R.C.S. Ireland. born in Bray Co. Wicklow 9 April 1815, died in San Francisco, California 21 May 1881. This picture was painted at Hobart Town, Van Dieman's Land whilst R.K.N. was there to- gether with his brother-in-law Fred K John Clarke MD, F.R.C.J., who had charge of the Colonial Hospital. The painter, the "famous" Thomas Griffith Wainewright who was serving out his sentence as a convict painted this picture whilst a patient at the Hospital ab't 1842. G.H.F.N. Regarded as the most representative collection of Thomas Griffith Wainewright's pictures in existence, the Nuttall Family Collection was amassed as a result of the friendship between Dr Robert Kennedy Nuttall and the artist. In August of 2021, two other portraits from this celebrated collection were handled by Bonhams having been inherited down through the English line of the family. Wainewright, convicted of forgery and suspected of murder following the mysterious deaths of his grandfather, mother-in-law and sister-in-law, arrived with 301 other convicts aboard the Susan at Van Diemans Land in 1837. By 1840 he was working as an orderly at the Colonial Hospital in Hobart Town where Nuttall had been appointed Assistant Surgeon at the age of 24. Nuttall, cultured and highly social in temperament, encouraged Wainewright to paint, commissioning numerous portraits of family members and promoting Wainewright to other figures of the Hobart society. From 1840 until early April of 1844, Nuttall and Wainewright interacted daily, both at the Hospital and also at Nuttall's home where he sat for various portraits, including this example. One such sitting is described in Andrew Motion's fictionalised account of Wainewright's life, Wainewright the Poisoner as: 'With my journeyman's box and easel banging against my backbone, I soon reach the house of another friend – Dr Nuttall. As I unpack the tools of trade, he takes his chair in a corner, away from the sun, and arranges himself for me in a severe twist. He seems to be shaking hands with himself, and this, like his attire, makes him formal and dignified. Yet his hair, which I have often seen disordered as he walks the wards of the Hospital in a long rapture of sympathy and self-forgetting, looks almost on end, it is so loosely brushed from his brow. Noble face! (Noble whiskers and moustaches!) Discriminating Soul! I would have clasped you in the arms of friendship wherever I had found you. To have had your admiration and trust in this desperate place has been a comfort indeed.'1 Nuttall's high opinion of Wainewright and firm friendship would ultimately result in Wainewright being granted a ticket of leave soon after the application was lodged in 1844. Highly irregular, this was no doubt the product of Nuttall's year-long campaign of support that had commenced in 1843, and included Nuttall's brother-in-law, Frederick Clarke who was the then Inspector. Dr Clarke's opinion is found in a document he prepared on 9 April 1844, 'I have much pleasure in recommending the Petitioner to the favourable consideration of His Excellency, I believe if this indulgence which he asks were granted, it would tend much to the improvement of his health, and that he would be able from