A kit-cat portrait or kit-kat portrait is a particular size of portrait, less than half-length, but including the hands. The name originates from a famous series of portraits which were commissioned from Godfrey Kneller for members of the Kit-Cat Club, a Whig dining club, to be hung in their meeting place at Barn Elms. They are now mostly in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, with a selection of about twelve displayed in London and others at their satellite locations, including twenty on display at Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire. [1]
Each canvas is thirty-six inches long, and twenty-eight wide. [2] The special Kit-cat portrait size is said to have been determined because the dining-room ceiling of the Kit-cat Club was too low for half-length portraits of the members. Slightly larger than the traditional head and shoulders format, it allows enough space to include one or both hands. So, while the poses in the Kit-cat portraits may look similar, none is actually repeated. When hung together, the overall effect is of a unified club of equals, though each man retains his individuality through distinct gestures, props and costumes. [3]
The Kit Kat portraits, as a whole, can be broken down into three separate types. The first group may be represented by the portrait of John Vanbrugh. [4] Vanbrugh's portrait is the most famous and the style of the painting is the most common.
Subjects wear huge stately wigs and formal clothing. The men painted in this style often look down and off to the left of the view, as if to be day-dreaming or thinking of some grand political scheme. These men are also painted with a ring or pendant, depicting their family crest.
William Cavendish [5] represents the second most popular pose in the series. He is painted with the same stately wig and fine clothing but he holds his staff of office as Lord Steward. His face is also more ruddy than Vanbrugh's, suggesting that he may be younger.
Thomas Hopkins represents the third most popular style. Instead of a wig, Hopkins is bald and sports a red cap but his clothes are the same as his fellow Kit Kats. [6]
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, within the civil parish of Henderskelfe, located 15 miles (24 km) north of York. It is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years. Castle Howard is not a fortified structure, but the term "castle" is sometimes used in the name of an English country house that was built on the site of a former castle.
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet was a German-born British painter. The leading portraitist in England during the late Stuart and early Georgian eras, he served as court painter to successive English and British monarchs, including Charles II of England and George I of Great Britain. Kneller also painted scientists such as Isaac Newton, foreign monarchs such as Louis XIV of France and visitors to England such as Michael Shen Fu-Tsung. A pioneer of the kit-cat portrait, he was also commissioned by William III of England to paint eight "Hampton Court Beauties" to match a similar series of paintings of Charles II's "Windsor Beauties" that had been painted by Kneller's predecessor as court painter, Peter Lely.
Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world that was dedicated to portraits.
John Russell was an English painter renowned for his portrait work in oils and pastels, and as a writer and teacher of painting techniques.
The Kit-Cat Club was an early 18th-century English club in London with strong political and literary associations. Members of the club were committed Whigs. They met at the Trumpet tavern in London and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.
Sir George Hayter was an English painter, specialising in portraits and large works involving sometimes several hundred individual portraits. Queen Victoria appreciated his merits and appointed Hayter her Principal Painter in Ordinary and also awarded him a Knighthood in 1841.
Barn Elms is an open space in Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, located on the northerly loop of the River Thames between Barnes and Fulham.
John Vanderbank was an English painter who enjoyed a high reputation during the last decade of King George I's reign and remained in high fashion in the first decade of King George II's reign. George Vertue's opinion was that only intemperance and extravagance prevented Vanderbank from being the greatest portraitist of his generation, his lifestyle bringing him into repeated financial difficulties and leading to an early death at the age of only 45.
Enoch Seeman the Younger was an English painter who was active during the first half of the Georgian era. He was born into a family of painters in Danzig.
Beginning with painter Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, it has been tradition for the president of the United States to have an official portrait taken during their time in office, most commonly an oil painting. This tradition has continued to modern times, although since the adoption of photography as a widely used and reliable technology, the official portrait may also be a photograph.
Sir John Baptist Medina or John Baptiste de Medina was an artist of Flemish-Spanish origin who worked in England and Scotland, mostly as a portrait painter, though he was also the first illustrator of Paradise Lost by John Milton in 1688.
John Faber the Younger was a Dutch portrait engraver active in London.
John Riley, or Ryley, was an English portrait painter. He painted portraits of Charles II and James II, and was court painter to William III and Mary II. One of his pupils was Jonathan Richardson.
Bartholomew Dandridge was an English portrait painter.
The Flagmen of Lowestoft are a collection of thirteen paintings by Sir Peter Lely, painted in the mid-1660s. They were originally part of the Royal Collections, though most were given to Greenwich Hospital in the nineteenth century, and are now in the National Maritime Museum in London. The paintings are of prominent naval officers, most of them of flag rank, who had fought at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665. Lely at the time was Principal Painter to King Charles II.
St Mary's Hall is a municipal building in Bayley Lane in Coventry, West Midlands, England. It is a Grade I listed building.
Charles Dartiquenave, also known as Charles Darteneuf was an English epicure and courtier.
Portrait of Spencer Compton is a c. 1710 portrait painting of the English politician Spencer Compton by the German-born British artist Godfrey Kneller.
Portrait of Christopher Wren is a 1711 portrait painting by the German-born British artist Godfrey Kneller of the English architect Christopher Wren. Wren, a polymath, is best known for his design of St Paul's Cathedral along with multiple other buildings in the English Baroque style. It was painted during the reign of Queen Anne, when the cathedral that Wren dad designed many years earlier was nearing completion. He is shown as a veteran, established figure at the age of seventy nine. His right hand holds a pair of compasses and rests on a plan of St Paul's.