Portrait
GILBERT STUART (1755–1828)
Portrait of Captain George Cockburn, about 1790
Oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 25 1/4 in.
RECORDED: Laurence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Work (1926), vol. I, p. 224 no. 170; vol. II, p. 106 no. 170 illus. // Edward Alden Jewell, “Naval and Military Portraits,” The New York Times, April 17, 1932, section N, p. 6
EXHIBITED: M. Knoedler & Co., New York, April 18–30, 1932, Naval and Military Portraits, p. 7 no. 14
EX COLL.: Sir George Cockburn (1763–1847); to his daughter, Catherine (Mrs. Gawn William Rowan) Rowan Hamilton (1791–1870), Killyleagh Castle, County Down, Ireland; to her grandson, Colonel Gawin William Rowan Hamilton, (1844–1930); to [Knoedler and Co., New York], 1924–1932; to James Carstairs, Esq., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; [Newhouse Galleries, New York]; to George M. Moffett, Queenstown, Maryland, and by descent, until 1990; to [M. Knoedler & Co., New York]; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York]; to private collection, 1992 until the present
Gilbert Stuart’s Irish years, from 1787 to 1793, have been commonly glossed over in the literature, read as an addendum, an interruption, an entr’acte, between Stuart’s promising early career in London and his mature career in America. When Stuart left London, he left behind a talented group of established British portrait painters including Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), and George Romney (1734–1802). When Gainsborough died in 1788, in that same year Thomas Lawrence made his first of years of entries into the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy, showing five portraits. Thus, London had no shortage of talented portraitists. Dublin, in contrast, offered great opportunity. It was nearby, prosperous, and without any portraitist of Stuart’s ability. Moreover, he had likely already encountered members of the Irish aristocracy in their frequent visits to London.
Georgge Cockburn was born in Dublin. Educated in Dublin and England, Cockburn joined the British Army in 1781. He was posted to Gibraltar, where he served as aide-de-camp to General George Eliott during the famous siege of Gibraltar (1779–83). The siege ended in a British victory that became an intense focus of British national pride, an antidote to the shame engendered by the loss of the American colonies in the same year.
Flush with victory, Cockburn was promoted in 1784 to captain-lieutenant in the 105th regiment and then to the 65th regiment quartered in Dublin. He became a favorite of his commanding officer who kept him behind when the regiment was transferred to Canada and charged him with recruiting duties The late 1780s saw him posted to study European military practices in Prussia and later Austria, France, and Spain. In 1790, Cockburn was promoted to captain in the 5th (Royal Irish) Light Dragoons. Stuart's portrait of Cockburn shows a dashing young officer. Though Cockburn was a soldier, Stuart offers on this canvas a red coated poet—sensitive, serious, and intelligent. While Cockburn was undoubtedly a military man, his portrait suggests a dimension later revealed in Cockburn’s collecting and literary pursuits.
Cockburn’s subsequent career saw him promoted numerous times, until, at his death in 1847, he was the fourth senior general in the British Army. Cockburn served in Sicily briefly in 1810 and proceeded to travel, publishing an account of what he saw in Cadiz, Gibraltar, Sicily, Malta, and Portugal. Around 1805, he purchased an estate in Bray, County Wicklow, a seaside town about 12 miles south of Dublin. The town derived from an ancient Norman settlement and remained an ideal location for a country seat until the advent of the railroad in 1854 transformed it into a bustling seaside. Cockburn immediately set about reimagining the classical home on his estate, hiring a well-known architect and commissioning renovations that turned a sedate residence into a castellated, turreted Gothic confection, called Shanganagh Castle, after an earlier local castle. In the 1820s, Cockburn traveled on the continent, collecting art and antiques that he exhibited in a purpose-built gallery at the skylit top of his castle home. He was, additionally, active in politics and was subsequently rewarded for his civic engagement. In 1821, George IV named him Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order (K.C.H.). William IV subsequently promoted him to Knight Commander of the Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order. He was knighted in 1830.