"Portrait Of William Kennaway In A Blue Coat, Signed & Dated 1779 By John Downman"
This exquisite oil on copper portrait sits within one of the finest examples of the artist’s work. Signed and dated: “J Downman / pinx / 1779” it is a very fine example of the late 18th century English school. The gentleman is portrayed in a standard gentlemanly manner with one arm tucked into the front of his coat. One of the key’s to Downman’s success was his recognition of the importance of representing his sitter’s in the fashionable costume of the day – and that is evidenced here, with the blue coat and large gold buttons and red collar, frilled white cravat, and powdered wig tied at the nape of the neck in a queue. Downman successfully captured a real sense of the sitter’s character and the work is striking in its recording of fine details all of which have been meticulously rendered.The sitter is Mr Kennaway of Exeter a fact known by a preparatory sketch that the artist made of this portrait, in black, red and white chalk on brown paper. It is dated in graphite, upper right (twice): 1779, and inscribed in brown ink on the mount “Mr Kennaway of Exeter 1779” (Fitzwilliam Museum).
The Kennaway family originated in Fife, Scotland. In 1713 the young William I Kennaway came from Scotland to Exeter in Devon to seek his fortune, and continue his trade as a serge-maker and clothier in the palmy days of Queen Anne. His son William (1718-93) followed him as a serge-maker but branched out on a wider scale altogether and in 1743 founded the merchanting business which has been so long associated with their name. In the 1780’s the account books show a spectacular expansion of the business, and William Kennaway senior took his two sons into the business as they came of age and ultimately a third son, all of whom were given a share in the profits and assets, which just before his death in 1793, they were worth about £83,000 between them, which was a very substantial fortune in eighteenth century Britain.
Like other Exeter merchants William Senior used some of this fortune to establish a private bank, in this case the Western Bank. His son William (1751-1819), the sitter in our portrait, carried on the family business of merchanting and banking, but in his day the Exeter woollen trade practically collapsed as a result of the Napoleonic wars and the business turned almost entirely to the importing of fine and let the woollen trade go. Another son of William senior, John Kennaway (1758-1836), entered the employment of the East India Company and made his name and fortune like so many other able young Englishmen in that profitable field. He showed himself to be a successful diplomatist and was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1791; returning to England he founded a landed family at Escot, near Ottery St. Mary, with an estate of some 4,000 acres. This portrait was previously thought to depict Sir John Kennaway, Bart however Sir John was in India in 1779 when Downman painted this portrait in Devon.
Our sitter was born on 16th November 1751, and after the collapse of the family’s woollen trade business, he ventured into the trade of wine. He married in 1779 – the year that the portrait was painted and in all likelihood the portrait was commissioned to celebrate this important occasion as was customary at the time. He died on 26th December 1819 and was buried at Wynard's Chapel of the Holy Trinity in Exeter, England. In the next generation, William Kennaway (1796-1868) carried on the family business of wine-merchanting until his death.
John Downman emerged as a prominent portrait artist during the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. The extraordinary popularity of John Downman’s portrait style during his own lifetime offers an interesting commentary on the state of British portraiture at the end of the eighteenth century, while his accurate records of contemporary fashion make him a valuable chronicler of his age, and his portraits are an invaluable reference for fashion historians today.
Born in Ruabon, North Wales, in 1750, he was the son of Francis Downman, an attorney with roots in Devonshire, and his mother Charlotte, who was the daughter of Francis Goodsend, a private secretary to King George I. In 1768, John began his artistic training under the tutelage of Benjamin West, and the subsequent year, he enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools. He presented his inaugural portrait at the Royal Academy in 1770, followed by his first subject painting in 1773, continuing to exhibit his works there until 1819. Between 1773 and 1774, now married, Downman furthered his studies in Rome alongside Joseph Wright of Derby.
We know from dated drawings that Downman was in Cambridgeshire by 1776 and his working method during his stay in Cambridge and for the following three or so years was to make a 'first study' of his sitter in chalks, which he worked up in oils on copper, often in more than one version. Comparison between the first studies and oil portraits show how faithful he remained to the original design, in both size and composition, and how dexterously he handled the fine detail of costume and physiognomy. The frequency with which he worked on copper is unusual, but the fact that he was experimenting with a gesso ground for his oil painting at the end of the 1790s suggests that he enjoyed the high degree of finish which could be achieved by working on a smooth support.
Despite the apparent abundance of work in Cambridge, Downman's stay in in the city was relatively brief. In 1778 he is again recorded in London and at the same time he began to explore the potential market for his work in the West Country. From 1779 to 1804, he occupied increasingly prestigious addresses in London, such as Bond Street, Jermyn Street, and Piccadilly. Although Downman produced few large-scale oil portraits, those he did create are characterised by elegance and skill. His early works primarily consist of small, oval oil portraits on copper, executed in the refined style reminiscent of Francis Wheatley. Downman’s gentle and appealing style resonated with the aesthetic preferences of his time; he portrayed the leading beauties of his era, including the Duchess of Devonshire, and was highly sought after for his vibrant, lifelike depictions of children. His studies of classical art in Italy are evident in his refined, delicate lines and his tendency to depict sitters in cameo-like profiles.
The reasons for his decision to move to Devon are uncertain, but family ties certainly played their part; a branch of the Downman family was long established in Devon. A letter from Mrs Humphry to her son Ozias, the miniature painter undated, but probably written around 1778, confirms that Downman was working in Exeter.
Downman became an ARA in 1795.
In 1804, Downman resided in West Malling, Kent, where he had family connections. He was an enthusiastic naturalist, engaging in the study of various animals and birds. By 1806, he relocated to Devon, where he wed the daughter of the esteemed Exeter organist and composer William Jackson, a known associate of Thomas Gainsborough. In his later years, he travelled extensively to fulfil various commissions, including a notable assignment in Alnwick, Northumberland, to depict Hugh, Lord Percy, the son of the Duke of Northumberland. In 1818, he established his residence in Chester, and he passed away in 1824 at his daughter's home in Wrexham.
Downman kept volumes of sketches of his sitters in which he records lively and amusing comments about them. These volumes are now divided between the British Museum, London and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
The work of John Downman is represented in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the British Museum, London; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven and in many English country house collections.
Measurements: Height 36cm, Width 32cm framed (Height 14”, Width 12.5” framed)
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