Sir George Cooke, Baronet
Framed: 38 x 32 1/2 inches (96.52 x 82.55 cm)
- 124
Loan Exhibition of Portraits: for the Benefit of the Post-Graduate Hospital, Daniel H. Farr Company, New York, April 1-12, 1935, no. 4, as by John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Sir George Cooke, Bt.
A Loan Exhibition of Fashion in Headdress: 1450-1943 For the Benefit of New York Infirmary for Women and Children, Wildenstein, New York, April 27-May 27, 1943, no. 64, as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Our American Heritage, Grand Rapids Art Gallery, Michigan, September 26-October 31, 1943.
Old and New England: an Exhibition of American Painting of Colonial and Early Republican Days together with English Painting of the same time, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, January 19-February 18, 1945, no. 16, as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Six Centuries of Headdress: Bal au Chapeaux, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, April 3-May 1, 1955.
Clothes Make the Man, Denver Art Museum, March 1-April 30, 1956.
Paintings by American Master, Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, September 14-October 19, 1966, unnumbered, as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Possibly Wright of Derby: Mr. and Mrs. Coltman, The National Gallery, London, February 5-April 27, 1986.
Wright of Derby, Tate Gallery, London, February 7-April 22, 1990, Grand Palais, Paris, May 17-July 23, 1990; Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 6-December 2, 1990, no. 33, as Cornet Sir George Cooke.
Portraits
often commemorate not only a person but also an important event in the sitter’s
life. This portrait celebrates the succession of Sir George Cooke to the 7th
Baronetcy of Wheatley Hall, an English estate, in 1776. The same year, Cooke
also purchased a commission in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, one of the
most expensive in the British Army. In the painting, Cooke appears as a veteran
emerging from the smoke of battle—an unlikely position for a recently enlisted
21-year-old of junior rank.
Probably the sitter, Sir George Cooke, Baronet (ca. 1745-1823), by ca. 1766-68;
By descent to Sir William Cooke [1];
With Daniel H. Farr Co., New York, by 1929-1930 [2];
Purchased from Daniel H. Farr Co. by M. Knoedler and Company, New York, stock no. CA-252, as by John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Sir George Cooke, Bart., 1930;
Purchased from Knoedler by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1930.
NOTES:
[1] According to Judy Egerton, Wright of Derby (London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1990), 78-79.
[2] M. Knoedler & Co. to Daniel H. Farr Co., June 28, 1930, Getty Research Library, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, Series VI.D.1 Letter Copying Books, box 1444, copy in NAMA curatorial files.
“Portrait Typical of Copley’s Best Period,” in “Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” The Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 29, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Sir George Cooke, Bart.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 122, 124, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
A Loan Exhibition of Paintings: For the Benefit of the Post-Graduate Hospital, exh. cat. (New York: Daniel H. Farr, 1935), (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Sir George Cooke, Bt.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 149, 153, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
A Loan Exhibition of Fashion in Headdress, 1450-1943: For the Benefit of New York Infirmary for Women and Children, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1943), (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
The Art News 43, no. 19 (January 15-31, 1945): 18-19, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Sir George Cooke, Bart.
The Catalogue of Old and New England: An Exhibition of American Painting of Colonial and Early Republican Days together with English Panting of the Same Time, exh. cat. (Providence: The Museum, 1945), 50, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Helen Comstock, “Portraiture in Old and New England: An Exhibition,” Connoisseur 116 (December 1945): 114-15, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Paintings by American Masters, Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, exh. cat. (Kalamazoo, MI: Sequoia Press, 1966), 6, (repro.), as by John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Sabine Krifka, Wright of Derby: Schauplätze der Wissenschaft (Aachen, Germany: Verlag Mainz, 1966).
Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light (London: The Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art, 1968), 1:36, 191; 2:(repro.), as Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 146, (repro.), as Sir George Cooke, Bart.
Allan Braham, Wright of Derby: Mr. and Mrs. Coltman, exh. cat. (London: National Gallery, 1986).
Judy Egerton, Wright of Derby, exh. cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 1990), 78-79, (repro.), as Cornet Sir George Cooke.
Anthony D. Darling, “Officers’ Basket-Hilted Swords of the Royal Horse Guards (Blue),” Man at Arms 13, no. 3 (May-June 1991): 5, 34-35, (repro.), as Sir George Cooke, Bart.
