A fine three-quarter-length example of Vanderbank’s productive 1720s period, the sitter is likely an individual of artistic standing, since he wears a turban (or morning cap) of a kind used by Vanderbank primarily for artist, architect and literary subjects. Examples include his portraits of George Lambert, John Michael Rysbrack, John Harvey, John Gay, and James Thompson. He is draped around the middle with loose orange silk, and wears a black jacket fitted with buttons, whose glinting highlights suggest cut-steel embellishment (a fashionable Georgian imitation of diamonds). The handling is typical of Vanderbank’s method of colouring, with colori cangiante seen best in the radiant flesh tones, achieved with the cool blue-grey shading of the exposed ground beneath. 

Traditional identifications of the sitter have included William Kent, who became a student of Vanderbank’s academy in 1720, its year of opening. A passing likeness ‒ particularly the cleft chin ‒ does recall Bartholomew Dandridge’s portraits of Kent, the smaller version being in the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 1557). However, facial similarities might just as easily be drawn with Dandridge’s Portrait of a Painter (possibly his self-portrait) (Fitzwilliam, Acc. no. 658), or Vanderbank's portrait of George Lambert. Moreover, the present example lacks any identifying architectural features or symbology, which one might expect of a portrait of Kent. 

The portrait was previously in the collection of the Milbanke baronets of Halnaby Hall (demolished in 1952), the impressive 17th-century estate where Lord Byron disastrously honeymooned in 1815. Although little documentary evidence survives of the collection, it is possible that the present work belonged to those Milbankes depicted in Stubbs’ most impressive conversation piece, likely made for the marriage of the Milbanke and Melbourne families.

JOHN VANDERBANK (London 1694-1739 London)

Vanderbank was born in London to the prosperous tapestry-weaver John Vanderbank (the Elder) of Soho, London’s most prominent tapestry weaver. Proprietor of the Soho Tapestry Manufactory and Yeoman Arras-maker to the Great Wardrobe, Vanderbank Senior supplied tapestries to the Royal Household from his Covent Garden premises, and was succeeded in the post by his son Moses in 1727. Vanderbank Junior first studied drawing and composition under his father, before taking lessons from Jonathan Richardson. In 1711 he entered Kneller’s new academy in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, adjacent to his father’s tapestry workshop, where he remained until 1720. He afterwards established his own academy in St Martin’s Lane alongside Louis Chéron, with an emphasis on drawing from life. The academy successfully rivalled James Thornhill’s, although it closed in 1724 following a series of financial difficulties, further to Chéron’s old age. Vanderbank’s academy was highly influential on the younger generation of artists, whose attendees at the life drawing classes included Hogarth, Highmore, Kent, and Faber. 

The prominence of Vanderbank’s academy granted the artist beneficial notoriety, and a broad professional network. For example, both Kent and the architect James Gibbs ‒ Vanderbank’s peer at the Kneller Academy ‒ were employed by the Duke of Chandos, immediately before Vanderbank was commissioned to paint his full-length. John Faber, another pupil of his academy, often engraved Vanderbank portraits. A period of great productivity continued throughout the 1720s, with commissions including King George I, Queen Caroline, and Isaac Newton. From the mid-1730s, Vanderbank often employed the drapery painter Joseph van Aken, also used by Hudson and Ramsay (presumably to keep up with demand). However, his success was somewhat undone by gross financial mismanagement, and extravagant living. He evidently kept a coach and horses and a country house for his mistress. In 1724, he fled to France to avoid imprisonment by his creditors, and upon his return some years later was seized and imprisoned in the Fleet Prison Mansions. Upon his mother’s death, Moses Vanderbank inherited (and sold) his shares in the Soho Tapestry Manufactory to settle his brother’s debts. Vanderbank afterwards took up residence in Lord Carteret’s house on Holles Street, and died of tuberculosis in 1739. Vanderbank had married the actress Ann Hardaker in 1723, although the couple had no children.