Charles Jervas

Artist Info

Charles JervasDublin, Ireland, about 1675 - 1739, London

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n80035861

Jervas [Jarvis], Charles (1675–1739), portrait painter and translator, was born in Clonliske, Shinrone, King's county, Ireland, the son of John Jervas (d. 1697) and Elizabeth Baldwin. According to George Vertue, by the mid-1690s Jervas was living in London, where he stayed and studied with Sir Godfrey Kneller for about a year. In early 1698 his copies of the newly hung Raphael cartoons at Hampton Court were bought by the politician and virtuoso Dr George Clarke, who also lent him £50 to travel. He set off immediately for Paris and by May 1698 was studying in the Louvre. He then proceeded to Italy, reaching Rome by 28 November 1699. There he set about copying antique statues and the works of, among others, Raphael, Guido Reni, and Titian. He also acted as an agent for collectors in England, buying considerable numbers of paintings, prints, and sketches. His most significant purchase, a cartoon for Raphael's Transfiguration of Christ, was, however, blocked for export by the pope—despite Jervas's repeated threats to petition for English ships to blow up Civita vecchia the principal port for Rome.

On his return to England in 1708, Jervas entered the literary circle of Addison, Pope, and Swift, setting up his home and studio in London in Cleveland Court, Westminster. He was hailed by Richard Steele in The Tatler of 16 April 1709 as ‘the last great painter Italy has sent us’. His stylized portraits of society ladies, typically in the guise of milkmaids or shepherdesses, became fashionable—his reputation enhanced ‘by his talk and boasting manner’ (Vertue, 3.17). Examples of his best works include portraits of Alexander Pope's friends Martha and Theresa Blount (c.1715, Mapledurham House, Oxfordshire) and Anne, countess of Sunderland (date unknown, priv. coll.), both of which display his accomplished handling of colour and his taste for rather elongated figures with tiny waists. Among his other major works are portraits of Jonathan Swift (c.1718, National Portrait Gallery, London) and The Family of Charles, Second Viscount Townshend (1720–25, priv. coll.). Frequent trips to Ireland, where he held considerable land, also resulted in several fine portraits, including a full-length portrait of Jane Seymour Conway reclining (c.1732, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin).

As well as literary friends, Jervas also had an influential patron in the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Jervas played an important role in acquiring works of art for Walpole's ever-expanding collection, as well as contributing his own portraits. In November 1723 it was Walpole and his allies who engineered Jervas's appointment as king's painter—a post he held for the rest of his life. Among the works known to have been produced by Jervas in this capacity are portraits of the young prince William, duke of Cumberland (1728, National Portrait Gallery, London) and coronation portraits of George II and Queen Caroline (1728, Guildhall Art Gallery, London).

Jervas had literary ambitions and with his friend Alexander Pope (whose painting instructor he had been for about six months in 1713) he edited (1716) a version of Charles-Alphonse Du Fresnoy's De arte grafica. This was followed about 1719 by the publication of his own translation of Machiavelli's Novella di Belfagor. However, his major literary undertaking was an English translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote. Published posthumously in 1742 and frequently reprinted, it is generally acknowledged as being close in spirit to the original.

Jervas's reputation as a painter appears to have declined during the 1730s. His marriage on 14 January 1726 at St Benet Paul's Wharf, Thames Street, London, to Penelope Hume (d. 1746), a widow with a fortune of £20,000, secured his future financially, and he was able to maintain a second home, in Hampton, Middlesex. By late 1738 his health was fading and a brief sojourn collecting paintings in Italy was followed by his death from a wasting condition, on 2 November 1739 at his home in Cleveland Court, Westminster, London. He was survived by his wife. The sale of his huge art collection conducted by Christopher Cock ran from 11 March until 1 May 1740. Several decades after Jervas's death Horace Walpole dismissed his style as ‘a light, flimsy kind of fan painting as large as the life’ (Walpole, 653–7). More recently he has been recognized as an accomplished portrait painter and a translator of considerable ability.

Edward Bottoms

Sources

Vertue, Note books · The correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. G. Sherburn, 5 vols. (1956) · letters to J. Ellis, BL, Add. MS 28,882, fols. 292, 333 · E. Bottoms, ‘Charles Jervas, Sir Robert Walpole and the Norfolk whigs’, Apollo, 145 (Feb 1997), 44–8 · The correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. H. Williams, 5 vols. (1963–5) · letter to G. Clarke, 1699, Worcester College, Oxford, MS 181 · letter to Bishop Hough, Bodl. Oxf., MS Eng. lett c. 275(20) · M. K. Talley, ‘Extracts from Charles Jervas's “sale catalogues”’, Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), 6–9 · W. G. Strickland, A dictionary of Irish artists, 2 vols. (1913); repr. with introduction by T. J. Snoddy (1989) · H. Walpole, Anecdotes of painting in England: with some account of the principal artists, ed. R. N. Wornum, new edn, 3 vols. (1849); repr. (1862) · IGI · The Tatler (16 April 1709)