George Frederic Watts (1817-1904)

Photographer: David Wilkie Wynfield (1837–1887)

1863

Albumen print

8 3/8 x 6 3/8 inches (21.3 x 16.2 cm)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery, London, accession no. NPG P96

Photo: © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Reproduced with kind permission. [Click on image to enlarge it, and see commentary below; mouse over the text for links.]

G. F. Watts (homepage)

Wynfield as a Painter

Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan

Wynfield took at least two different photographs of Watts. This one shows him full-face with a melancholy expression looking downwards. His arms are folded across each other with his left hand clutching his right arm. Waggoner has again pointed out areas of varying focus in this work with its lighter tonal palette: "In the Watts image, the veins and bony structure of the subject's left hand are particularly well delineated against the deep darks of his brocade or velvet costume" (Waggoner 96).

Considering that Wynfield had posed other artists as Old Master painters, such as Thomas Oldham Barlow in the manner of a Rembrandt self-portrait and J. D. Watson in the manner of Van Dyck, it is somewhat surprising that he didn't photograph Watts in the manner of Titian, a painter the older artist greatly admired and who had a great influence on his art. Watts was later to paint a self-portrait of himself of c.1879 in which the composition and costume echoes that of Titian's own self-portrait of 1566. This portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Certainly at the time Wynfield made this photograph of Watts the painter was greatly influenced by Venetian High Renaissance painting, as were many of the artists associated with the second wave of Pre-Raphaelitism and the Aesthetic Movement.

At the time Wynfield made his photographs of Watts the artist was best known as a portrait painter before he became famous for the allegorical and symbolist works of his later career. In 1867 Watts was elected first an Associate of the Royal Academy in January and then a full academician in December. He was awarded a D.C.L. by Oxford University on 14 June 1882 and an L.L.D. by Cambridge University on 12 June 1883. He was offered a knighthood, which he refused, but in 1902 he accepted the newly instituted Order of Merit, conferred on him by King Edward VII.

Bibliography

"George Frederic Watts." National Portrait Gallery, London. Web. 14 December 2023.

Hacking, Juliet. Princes of Victorian Bohemia. London: Prestel, 2000. 76 and 78.

Waggoner, Diane. The Pre-Raphaelite Lens. British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2010.

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Created 14 December 2023