Edinburgh auctioneers expect £50,000 for rare Swift painting
IT is almost 300 years since it was first published, but Gulliver’s Travels is still considered to be a satirical masterpiece.
However, there are few images of Anglo-irish author Jonathan Swift who says he wrote the1726 novel “to vex the world rather than divert it”.
It tells the story of Dr Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon, in four parts including Lilliput where he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the people.
Now a painting thought to be the earliest likeness of Swift is to be sold in an online auction and experts say it could reach a five-figure sum. It’s the first time the painting has come up for sale in 200 years.
Swift is believed to be only 16 years old and a student at Dublin College in the painting, which is estimated to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000.
The painting, which is attributed to the Irish artist Thomas Pooley, will be sold live online from Edinburgh by the fine art auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull on Wednesday, May 18.
There are few images of the celebrated Anglo-irish author, whose works include An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity and A Modest Proposal.
Thought to have been painted around 1682, the painting is coming to auction for the first time in two centuries.
Nick Curnow, head of fine art at
Lyon & Turnbull, said: “This is a remarkable painting of a literary giant of whom few likenesses exist.
“Swift is a very self-assured sitter for a young man and the work has a presence and immediacy that so many 18th-century portraits lack.”
The work was acquired by Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, County Down, in 1801, who recorded it as “a small portrait of Dean Swift”.
First exhibited at South Kensington in 1867, it then drifted in and out of public view for the next hundred years.
In 1898 Sir Leslie Stephen, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, declared “the present whereabouts of this portrait is unknown”.
It reappeared around 1967 in the collection of a descendant of Thomas Percy and at this time it came to the attention of Swift scholars and was attributed to Pooley.
The artist painted many high society figures in Ireland during the second half of the 17th century and at the start of the 18th, contributing to the theory that Swift was the illegitimate son of his benefactor, Sir John Temple
The painting was shown in an exhibition at the National Library of Ireland in 1999.
Dominic Somerville-brown, rare books specialist at Lyon & Turnbull, said: “Swift has an enduring hold on readers’ imaginations and an indisputable place in the literary canon.
“However, his legacy is not matched by a profusion of images, especially given the era in which he lived.
“This portrait being auctioned is therefore very exciting and I will be on tenterhooks when bidding begins.”
Swift was also involved in publishing the memoirs of an Irish Jacobite soldier in Scotland.
The remarkable book was Memoirs of Captain John Creichton, a sympathetic account of an Episcopalian Jacobite soldier who fought against the covenanters, and then against the Williamite revolution.
First published in 1731, it is an instance of Swift’s sympathy and elective affinity with a Jacobite community.
Swift’s involvement with Creichton’s memoirs was prompted by his High Church confessional politics which was the principal lens through which Swift viewed the Revolution in Scotland, Ireland and England.
The portrait is being auctioned as part of Lyon & Turnbull’s Five Centuries: Furniture, Paintings & Works of Art sale.
This is a remarkable painting of a literary giant