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Portrait of John Frederick Lewis, RA HRSA

Artist: Gordon, John Watson, Sir, PPRSA RA RSA · 1788-1864

Portrait of John Frederick Lewis, RA HRSA

The English painter J F Lewis had travelled widely to Holland, France, Italy and Spain in the 1820s and 1830s visiting the great public art…

The English painter J F Lewis had travelled widely to Holland, France, Italy and Spain in the 1820s and 1830s visiting the great public art collections and making detailed and colour-accurate copies in watercolour and bodycolour of over sixty paintings which he encountered.

It was a collection which became celebrated and which he was loathe to part with.

However in 1853 he reached an agreement with the Royal Scottish Academy which recognised the importance of the Lewis Collection as a teaching aid.

Lewis valued the collection of his sixty-three watercolour copies at £565.19/- but agreed to part with them for £475 or 450 guineas. RSA Council Minutes of 1853-04-01 record; “The Council instructed the Secretary to write Mr Lewis informing him of the purchase by the Academy of his collection of sixty-three drawings for five hundred pounds..…"

In recognition of Lewis' consideration to the Academy he was elected an Honorary Member (HRSA) that same year and the watercolours were put on public exhibition in the RSA Life Class former classroom at 33 Abercromby Place, complete with a printed catalogue.

The present portrait was painted con amore by the Academy's then President, Sir John Watson Gordon and presented by him to the RSA.

The acquisition of the Lewis Collection can be seen in the same context as the purchase, also in 1853 of William Etty's copy of Titian's Venus d'Urbino, the commission given to Robert Herdman in 1854 to undertake copies of early Italian frescoes, and the Academy becoming a subscriber to the publications of the Arundel Society from1848.