James Duff, Second Earl of Fife (1729–1809)
Artist
Francis Cotes
British, 1726–1770
Date1765
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions94 1/4 x 58 1/4 in. (239.4 x 148 cm)
Frame: 105 1/4 x 69 1/8 in. (267.3 x 175.6 cm)
Frame: 105 1/4 x 69 1/8 in. (267.3 x 175.6 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LinePurchased with funds from the State of North Carolina
Object number52.9.67
On View
Not on view[1] A copy of the painting was made at the time of the sale in 1924, which still hangs in Duff House.
[2] Annotated copy in NCMA library notes this buyer.
[3] In his 1976 catalogue of Cotes’s paintings, Edward Mead Johnson notes in the provenance for the NCMA painting (cat. no. 173) that Vose Galleries was the buyer of the painting at the Leverhulme Sale. However, an annotated version of the sales catalogue and a clipping from an article reporting the results of the sale (“91 Leverhulme Paintings Sell for $110,745”, New York Herald Tribune, September 25, 1925), both report the buyer as Adrian Edsberg (both are in the object file). No further information on Edsberg has yet been found, so it’s unclear whether he purchased the painting as an agent on behalf of Vose Galleries.
[4] Edward I. Farmer (1872–1942) was a dealer in Chinese art and European antiques, who had galleries on W and E 56th St, New York. The 1947 sale was the final step in closing out his estate, and liquidated the remaining stock of Farmer’s galleries.
[5] Invoice from Scott & Fowles, NCMA object file, 1952, notes an ex. coll. for the painting as “H.R.H. The Princess Royal”. It’s probable that at the time of acquisition, this was mistaken for a reference to Charlotte Augusta Mathilda (1766–1828), Princess Royal of Great Britain & Ireland and Queen of Württemberg, whose name has long been in the Museum’s provenance for this painting. This apparently began with the Museum’s accession sheet for the work in 1952 and appears in print first in W. R. Valentiner’s Catalogue of the Museum’s paintings (1956), no. 77. No connection with the collection of Augusta Mathilda has been found, as the painting was in the collections of the Earls of Fife from its completion in 1765 through 1924.Published ReferencesA Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Designs in Architecture, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c., Exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great-Britain (1765), 4, no. 17, as A nobleman.
Catalogue of the Portraits and Pictures in the Different Houses Belonging to James, Earl of Fife, 1798, 11, no. 6.
Catalogue of the Portraits and Pictures in the Different Houses Belonging to James, Earl of Fife, 1807, 26, no. 6.
Algernon Graves, The Society of Artists of Great Britain 1760–1791, The Free Society of Artists 1761–1783. A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from the Foundation of the Societies to 1791 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1907), 65, as A nobleman.
"Catalogue of Important Pictures by Old Masters, Sold by Order of H.R.H. The Princess Royal..." (auction catalogue) (London: Christie, Manson & Woods, July 18, 1924), lot 97.
American Federation of Arts, American Art Sales: Detailed Listings of Auction Sales of Paintings, Prints, Drawings, and Sculpture in the United States, Volumes 6-7 (December 1925), 13.
"The Art Collections of the Late Viscount Leverhulme, Part II, Paintings" (auction catalogue) (New York: Anderson Galleries, February 17–19, 1926), lot 43.
Hugh Gatty, "Notes by Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, on the Exhibitions of the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists, 1760–1791," The Volume of the Walpole Society 27 (1938–1939), 63, as A nobleman...Earl of Fife.
"Chinese Art, Jade Carvings, Porcelain & Pottery...Fine English Furniture of the Queen Anne & Georgian Periods...Liquidation of the Stock of Edward I. Farmer, Inc." (auction catalogue) (New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, April 16–19, 1947), lot 897.
W.R. Valentiner, Catalogue of Paintings: Including Three Sets of Tapestries (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1956), no 77.
British Painting to 1900: Catalogue of Paintings, Vol. 2, 2nd ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1969), no. 69, illus. (b-w).
Edward Mead Johnson, Francis Cotes (London: Phaidon, 1976), cat. no. 173, illus.
Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 118.
David Steel, entry for James Duff, Second Earl of Fife (1729-1809), in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 336, illus. (color) 337.
Exhibition HistoryLondon, Society of Artists, April 23, 1765, no. 17.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “History and Mystery: Discoveries in the NCMA British Collection,” August 6, 2016–June 25, 2017. Object Rights Statement
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