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Dimensions: measurements note each: 51.2 by 38.2 cm.; 20 1/8 by 15 in.
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Provenance: Charles Brinsley Marlay Esq., Belvedere House, Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland;
Thence by descent to Colonel Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury, by 1912;
Thence by descent to Rex Beaumont Esq.;
His sale, London, Christie's, 4 December 1964, lots 42 & 43, for £4,000 & £4,200 to "Huber", after which the sale was presumably cancelled;
His sale, ("Property of Rex Beaumont Esq."), London, Christie's, 24 November 1967, lots 54 & 55, for £3,800 & £3,500, where purchased by Leger Gallery, London.
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Exhibited: Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Paintings from Irish Collections, May-August 1957.
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Literature: W. Geelen, "Mitteilungen über Porträts des Kölner Patriciergeschlechts von Wedigh und Unterlagen zur Bestimmungderselben", in Beiträge zur Kölnischen Geschichte, Sprache, Eigenart, vol. II, 1917, pp. 171-195, footnote 24.5;
D. Hill, "Irish Collections", in The Observer, 26 May 1957, the latter portrait reproduced;
D. Sutton, Paintings from Irish Collections, exhibition catalogue, Dublin 1957, the former portrait reproduced p. 1262;
H.-J. von Tümmers, "Bartholomäus Bruyn der Jüngere", in Sonderdruck aus dem Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, vol. XXXII, 1970, pp. 116 & 127-8, cat. no. 5, reproduced figs. 91 & 92, p. 128.
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Nicolaus von Gail and his wife Sophie von Wedigh both came from prominent families in Cologne. Bartholomäus Bruyn the Younger painted portraits of several members of both these families, and one of his daughters later married a member of the Wedigh family. Bruyn's portraits of Hermann (IV) von Wedigh and his wife Aleid Therlaen von Lennep in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne are similar to the present pair both in composition and in the handling of the sitters' features and draperies.υ1
A note on the Provenance
Charles Brinsley Marlay (1831-1912) of Belvedere House, County Westmeath, Ireland, was a notable collector and benefactor of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. His bequest to the museum upon his death in 1912 triggered the 20th-century expansion of the museum, the Marlay wing opening in 1924. His estate passed to his distant half-cousin Lt.-Colonel Charles Kenneth Howard Bury (1881-1963), an explorer and botanist of Charleville Forest, Tullamore, King's County. Col. Howard-Bury became a public figure after he led the Everest Expedition in 1921. Howard-Bury then met the Englishman Rex B. Beaumont (1914-1988) while serving in the RAF during World War II. For over thirty years Beaumont was friend and companion to Howard-Bury and inherited the Belvedere estate on his death. Beaumont was the last private owner of Belvedere and the Westmeath County Council purchased the estate from him in 1982.
1. see H.-J. von Tümmers, under literature, pp. 132-3, cat. no. 8, figs. 97 & 98, reproduced.
