MICHAEL DAHL
Stockholm 1659 - 1743 London
Master Thomas Winnington (1696 - 1746)
Oil on Canvas
Each 25 x 30 in (63 x 76 cm)
(A Matched Pair with Portrait of a Lady)
Provenance
Sir Francis Winnington Bt.
Thomas Winnington was born on New Year ’s Eve 1696. He was the son of Salwey Winnington of Stanford Court, Member of Parliament for Bewdley, and grandson of Sir Francis Winnington, who had been Solicitor General in the 1670s. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, and was admitted to Middle Temple in 1714.
He entered Parliament in 1726 as Whig member for Droitwich, and was re-elected there at every general election for the rest of his life. In 1741 he was also elected for Worcester (a more prestigious constituency), and he chose to represent that city in what turned out to be his last Parliament.
A supporter of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Winnington was made a Lord of the Admiralty in 1730, and served as a Lord of the Treasury from 1736 to 1742. In 1741 he was made a Privy Counsellor and became Cofferer of the Household. When Henry Pelham became Prime Minister in 1743, he appointed Winnington Paymaster General of the Forces, the post he himself had held in the previous administration (although unlike Pelham, Winnington was not accorded a seat in the Cabinet). Winnington held this post for the remaining two-and-a-half years of his life.
In 1719, Winnington married Love Reade, daughter of Sir James Reade, Bt. of Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire. They had no children, and the Stanford Court estate subsequently passed to his cousin who became Sir Edward Winnington, 1st Baronet.
The present painting may be compared with another depiction of Thomas Winnington by Christian Friedrich Zincke (a miniature in enamel, on copper dating from the 1720’s), preserved in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Michael Dahl was the leading portrait painter in Britain after Kneller during the reigns of William and Mary, and of Queen Anne. While his work is sometimes confused with that of Kneller, it may be readily recognized by Dahl’s greater sensitivity of characterization, and by the liveliness of his palette, as demonstrated in the present portraits. In the words of Collins Baker, Dahl’s art demonstrates ‘a mastery of pigment, a taste in colour, and genuine feeling for design’(i).
Dahl’s sense of colour profited from his sojourn in Italy (1684-7), and his portraits of young women in particular follow the dictum of Lairesse that their dress should be ‘tender, sedate and modest….white Garments of thin Linnen, and all Sorts of airy and womanish coloured Silks, viz light blue, Apple-blossom, Pearl-colour or light lemon, cast loosely on each other’(ii). The present Portrait of a Lady exemplifies these dictums, and lend the sitter a beautiful and timeless quality.
The work of Michael Dahl is represented in numerous museums and country houses of Britain, including The National Portrait Gallery (London), The Tate Gallery, Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool), The National Museum (Stockholm), Petworth House, Stourhead and Goodwood.
BIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL DAHL
Stockholm 1659 – 1743 London
Michael Dahl was born in Stockholm on 29 September 1659. He studied in Sweden under Ehrenstrahl and started on his travels in 1682, coming first to London, where he may have had some experience in Kneller’s studio. He later traveled to Paris, and by 1684 was in Rome, where he remained until 1687. He returned via Frankfurt to London, where he settled permanently in 1689.
He soon became the best patronized portrait painter after Kneller. He was employed by Prince George of Denmark, and did a good many portraits of the court under Queen Anne, of which the set of Admirals at Greenwich c.1702-8 (in competition with Kneller) are good examples. A great patron in the 1690’s was the Duke of Somerset, for whom he painted the Petworth Beauties, also probably in rivalry with Kneller. After 1714 he lost Court patronage but continued in successful practice painting the nobility, the Law and the Church.
His style is close to that of Kneller, but his interpretation of character is more sensitive, and his palette more refined. He held a respected position in the London art world until his retirement, from old age, in 1740.
(i) Collins Baker, Lely and the later Stuart Portrait Painters, 1912, II, p.97.
(ii) Lairesse, 1738, p.165.