ohn Partridge was born in Glasgow on 28 February 1790, and became a pupil of Thomas Phillips, first exhibiting a portrait Miss Foote as Lucilla at the Royal Academy in 1815. He travelled to France and Italy before settling in London in 1827. An early painting, The Mother attracted favourable attention in the Athenaeum of 1828 as "a picture preeminent in grace, both in subject and treatment; the colouring is beautiful, and shows that the artist has studied Titian with effect. In the background the warm sunny tint of evening is delightful...." Interestingly, the critic goes on to find the mother's face raher less animated than the child's. Still, it is a good notice for the newcomer.
Self-Portrait, 1836.
In fact, Partridge was soon making a name for himself as a fashionable portrait painter: his portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, shown at the Royal Academy in 1841, were issued as engravings, and in the following year he was made "Portrait-painter Extraordinary to Her Majesty." According to Harold G. Daniels, it was to Partridge that "W.P. Frith took his early sketches, when it was a question whether he should become an artist or a an auctioneer" (361; presumably Partridge was encouraging, since Frith chose the right path). But, instead of flourishing, the older artist's own career took a wrong turn. On the one hand, as Christopher Wood explains, his role as court-painter "was eclipsed by the arrival of Winterhalter" (358), who came over in 1842, just when he was getting established at court himself; worse, his standing at the Royal Academy was blighted when a disagreement led to two other portraits that he made of the royal couple — and then his portraits of the future Viscount and Viscountess Melbourne — being obscurely hung. He rooted out the cause — another artist had objected to his tweaking his work to please its owner, and had turned others against him. Partridge riled against his subsequent treatment in his publication On Constitution and Management of the Royal Academy (1864), ending with a severe criticism of "the inherent vice of the system" which had resulted in his being, in his own words, "driven from the position I held in public estimation and employment, with the consequent sacrifice of my professional income" (30). But the matter was never resolved. He never resumed exhibiting there, or became a Royal Academician.
Partridge took up other subjects, besides portraits, from time to time, and continued to show them at the British Institution. Notable among these was The Fine Arts Commissioners, 1846. However, his reputation was irretrievably dented. It now rests on his portraits of notable personages of the age. At the time, these were "thought to be good likenesses, if not remarkable as pictures" (James 377), but now his representations of figures like Palmerston and Melbourne (shown on the right) have become familiar, and are recognised for providing not only valuable records of them, but some insights into their characters.
As for Partridge's own character, little is known about it. He was married, but the couple were childless, and, sadly, there is no descendent's memoir to give us details about his personality or personal life. However, there is one prominent representative of the Partridge family in the art world — his nephew, the well-known cartoonist Bernard Partridge. John Partridge died at his home in Grosvenor Square, London, on 25 November 1872. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Works
Bibliography
"The British Institution, Pall Mall." Athenaeum, 11 (April-June 1828): 94.
Daniels, Harold G. "An Afternoon with Mr. Bernard Partridge." The Idler: A Illustrated Monthly Magazine. Vol. 11 (February-July 1897): 359-374. Google books. Free eBook.
Graves, R. E., and Charles Noble. "Partridge, John (1789–1872), portrait painter." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. 12 December 2024.
James, Ralph N.Painters and Their Work: A Dictionary of Great Artists Who Are not Now Alive.... Vol. 2 of 3. London: L. Upcott Gill, 1897. Google books. Free eBook.
Partridge, John. On Constitution and Management of the Royal Academy. London: Bell and Daldy, 1864. Google books. Free eBook.
Wood, Christopher. The Dictionary of Victorian Painters. 2nd ed. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors Club, 1978.
Created 28 June 2020
Last modified 12 December 2024