Rosalba Carriera (Italian, 1673-1757)

Portrait of Coulson Fellowes (1696-1769), head and shoulders, in a brown coat and white stock, wearing a long wig
pastel on blue laid paper, affixed onto original textile support and wooden strainer
contained within the original black transit frame provided by the artist, set in a later carved wooden frame
54.5 x 41cm

Provenance:
The portrait was the property of sitter's younger brother William Fellowes (1705-1775), Founder of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital,
Thence in the collection of family portraits at Shotesham Park until the sale of the house and estate after the death of Major Charles Fellowes in 1979,
Thence to the present owner, thereby remaining in the family.

It is recorded by Rosalba herself that Coulson Fellowes visited her studio in May 1724. In Rosalba’s correspondence and diaries published by Bernardina Sani (Rosalba Carriera: Catalogue Raisonné, Italian Edition, September 2007, Vol. II, p.783), it is noted that on 9th May of that year she began the portrait “Incominciato in pastelle M.r Felo Inglese” and on 15th May “Avuto da M.r Felo cecchini 22”.

Literature:
John Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers, Yale University Press, 1997, p.351;
Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, Rosalba Carriera, Named sitters A-K, p.14, J.21.0511 (online edition)

The eldest son of the barrister William Fellowes of Eggesford, Devon, Coulson Fellowes matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1716 and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1723.

He subsequently embarked on a Grand Tour of France and Italy from 1723-1725. In early 1724, upon the death of his father, Fellowes inherited the manor of Eggesford. This perhaps provided the catalyst for him to commission his portrait for it was soon after that the present likeness was captured in Venice by Rosalba Carriera, one of the most fashionable artists of the age.

Rosalba recorded the sitting in her remarkably informative diary, noting that she began the pastel on 9^th May 1724, with payment of 22 zecchini being received on 15^th May. This resultant elegant study is a very fine example of the innovative portraiture of the Venetian artist, exhibiting the spontaneity, directness and intimacy which propelled Rosalba to international stardom at the beginning of the 18^th century.

Indeed, the execution of the present work followed the artist’s significant stay in Paris from 1719 to 1720, a sojourn which confirmed her success as a pioneering portrait painter. In Paris, Rosalba was a guest of Pierre Crozat, the King’s treasurer, and met Rigaud, Largillière, Watteau and other artists and connoisseurs, becoming greatly admired by the aristocracy and the court.

Her close relationship with Watteau reflects Rosalba’s adoption of a typically rococo spirit, conducive to being captured in pastel, which became the key to her renown. After her return to Venice from Paris, she sent her famous Nymphe de la suite d'Apollon (now in the Musée du Louvre) to the Académie which was praised by the Mercure galant in 1722 for its ‘gracefulness’ and ‘lightness’ of touch.

Such qualities are apparent in Rosalba’s portrait of Coulson Fellowes which also demonstrates her direct and personal response to her clients. Rosalba’s portrayals did not reflect their social status but rather an acute eye for physiognomy enabled her to provide both a mirror image of her subjects whilst simultaneously entering into the minds of her sitters to imbue her studies with psychological insight, the face becoming the focus of attention.

It was also in the early 1720s that Rosalba’s popularity in England flourished as a result of numerous portraits like the present example returning with British aristocrats and members of landed families from the Grand Tour. She wrote to Nicolas Vleughels in 1721 that she had been ‘attaqué par des Angles’.

That her small scale works on paper were quick to execute and easy to transport undoubtedly contributed to their popularity. However, it is clear Rosalba went to great pains to send them safely as noted by William Bentick in 1727: “It will come in a little black frame with a glass over it. And it must be left so, she [Rosalba] herself desired me that it might be left just as it is because taking it out might easily spoil the Picture. And nothing moist must come near it.”

From 1723, Rosalba’s diary also records several commissions from Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice, who possibly introduced her to Fellowes in his role as a great patron of painters.

Fellowes would later become Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire from 1741-1761. Upon his death in 1769, he left money to Addenbrookes Hospital, founded a few years earlier.

Condition Report

70 x 57cm framed