Lot 264: HENRY PICKERING

HENRY PICKERING UNKNOWN FL.1740 - 1771 MANCHESTER PORTRAIT OF SIR WOLSTAN DIXIE, 4TH BT. (1701-1767), OF BOSWORTH HALL, LEICESTERSHIRE, AND HIS FAMILY, SEATED AROUND A HARPSICHORD signed and dated lower right: H. Pickering / pinxit 1755 oil on canvas 232 by 400 cm; 91 by 157 1/2 in.

C. Hussey, 'Buxted Park Sussex, III', Country Life, vol. CVIII, London 1950, p. 520, illus. p. 519, fig. 4;
E. Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters in oil and crayon, Woodbridge 1981, pp. 282-283 (illus.)

Commissioned from the artist by Sir Wolstan Dixie, 4th Bt. (1701-1767), Bosworth Hall, Leicestershire;
thence by descent until acquired by the Hon. Mrs Nellie Ionides (1883-1962), Buxted Park, East Sussex;
sold by order of the Trustees of her deceased estate, London, Sotheby's, 29th May 1963, lot 134 (bt. for £300 by the father of the present owner);
thence by descent

This magnificent portrait shows Sir Wolstan Dixie, pehaps the artist's most important patron, seated on the right with his two sons Wolstan and Willoughby together with his third wife Margaret Cross (d. 1797). Also in the portrait are six of his daughters, probably including Rebecca and Anne, daughters by his first marriage to Anna Freer (d. 1739), and Eleanor-Francis and Rosamond, daughters by his second marriage to Theodosia Wright (d. 1751). Eleanor-Francis later married George Pochin of Bourne and Rosamond married Clement Kynnersley of Loxley.
In December 1713 Wolstan suceeded to the baronetcy and took on the family estate at Bosworth Hall, near Market Bowsworth in Leicestershire, where this portrait was painted in 1755. The estate at Boswoth had been in the ownership of the Dixie family since the sixteenth century when it was acquired in 1589 by Sir Wolstan Dixie (1525-1594), Lord Mayor of London, a prominent member of the Skinners' Company and President of Christ's Hospital.