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| John Barker (1707–1787) |
Artist:Sir Joshua Reynolds (British, Plympton 1723–1792 London)
Date:1786
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:68 1/4 x 47 1/2 in. (173.4 x 120.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Ruth Armour, 1954
Accession Number:54.192
Catalogue Entry
John Barker was baptized in Lowestoft, a Suffolk port town, on November 9, 1707. His father was a merchant, from whom he inherited property in Lowestoft and an interest in ships sailing from Great Yarmouth. In 1741 he was elected to membership in the Younger Brethren of the Corporation of Trinity House, London, which was England’s leading lighthouse and harbor-pilot authority. He joined the Elder Brethren in 1750 and in 1762 became the warden. From 1771 until his death he served as governor of London’s principal marine insurance company, London Assurance. In the 1750s Barker had become interested in philanthropy, serving at various times as a governor or director of several London charities. In the background of the portrait there is a view of the enclosed basin and jetty of Ramsgate Harbour, Kent, the development of which occupied Barker, who was a highly trained engineer, from 1749 until his death. He was elected chairman of the Ramsgate Harbour Trustees’ Works Committee in 1760 and served for almost twenty-eight years. Although modernized, the harbor has not changed greatly in appearance since.
Barker had seven appointments for sittings with Reynolds between mid-February and early April of 1786, and on April 7 paid the artist two hundred guineas for his portrait. He died the following year at eighty, and the work may perhaps be understood to have been commissioned as a proud reprise of his long life and accomplishments. Originally, it was even larger, ninety-three by fifty-seven inches (236.2 × 144.8 cm), the size of a standing full-length (it was cut down between 1907 and 1915). A curious choice for the 1786 Royal Academy exhibition, it was not particularly well received by the press. The portrait is conservative: not only Barker’s velvet suit but also the composition, style, and rather finicky treatment of detail all probably accorded with the elderly sitter’s wishes. The work was engraved by John Jones in the year it was painted; a later engraving by Granger was published by Hardy in 1802 (Hamilton 1884). The painting has deteriorated over time in the most important passages, that is, the face, hands, wig, and red costume, all of which are thickly impasted.
[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009]
Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org
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