Lot 139: THOMAS SMITH OF DERBY FL.1745-1767

oil on canvas

68 by 110 cm., 26 3/4 by 43 1/4 in.

Anon. sale, Christie's, 2nd April 1971, lot 22

Furness Abbey, situated in the north-west of Lancashire just south of Barrow-in-Furness, was founded in 1124 by Stephen Count of Boulogne and Martain, who became King of England in 1135. It was occupied by monks of the Order of Savigny, which in 1147 amalgamated with the Cistercian Order. Furness thus became the first Cistercian monestry in England. By the thirteenth centure the abbey flourished and acquired significant property, not only in neighbouring Yorkshire and the Lake District, but in Ireland and the Isle of Man. Building on a large scale followed, and a number of daughter homes were formed, the first being at Calder. In Ireland homes were founded at Iniscourcey in County Down, and Abington in County Limerick. In 1537 the brethren gave up the monastery to the King, the last abbott Roger Peel having already fled. In 1539 the site and most of the lands were granted to Thomas Cromwell, but two years later they passed to Sir Thomas Curwen and from him to his son-in-law John Preston. By the seventeenth century some of the Preston family had converted to Roman Catholicism, and indeed Sir Thomas Preston Bt (1641-1709) became a Jesuit, dying abroad in 1709. He tried unsuccessfully to leave the abbey to the Jesuit Order, but was thwarted by his kinsman, Thomas Preston M.P., who obtained a crown lease of Furness Abbey. On his death in 1697 the Preston estates, including Furness Abbey, passed to his daughter who married Sir Thomas Lowther Bt of Marske, Yorkshire, and on the death of their grandson without issue the estate passed to Lord George Cavendish, second son of William Cavenish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire.

To the right of the composition is the manor house, which was originally the Crown Agent's home after the dissolution of the monastery. The picture shows a religious procession entering the abbey, and must have been intended to show what the abbey might have looked like had it been left to the Jesuits as Sir Thomas Preston had intended.