Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898)

Photographer: David Wilkie Wynfield (1837–1887)

1863

Albumen print

7 7/8 x 6 3/8 inches (20.0 x 16.2 cm).

Collection: National Portrait Gallery, London, accession no. NPG P72

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.]

Philip Hermogenes Calderon (homepage)

Wynfield as a Painter

Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan

Wynfield described his friend Philip Calderon, the leader of the St. John's Wood Clique, as wearing a Van Dyck costume in this photograph. He is shown full face wearing a pale doublet with horizontal stripes under an overgarment of dark silk. He wears a white ruff collar similar to those seen in Dutch Old Master seventeenth-century paintings. Calderon appears as a Spanish grandee reflective of his family background. Calderon's father the Rev. Juan Calderon had been born in Spain and had once been a Catholic priest. He had left the church and converted to Anglicanism in order to marry. The family moved to London in the 1840s where Juan Calderon became Professor of Spanish Literature at King's College, London. Philip Calderon was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1864 and a full member in 1867. In 1887 Calderon was appointed Keeper of the Royal Academy.

Bibliography

Hacking, Juliet. Princes of Victorian Bohemia. London: Prestel, 2000. 36-37.

Marsh, Jan. "This Portrait." National Portrait Gallery. Web. 14 December 2023.

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Created 14 December 2023