George Patten’s preparatory work, 1832.
George Patten’s 1832 portrait was remarked upon by Achille Paganini as the most lifelike depiction of his father. The portrait remained the property of the artist all his life before being purchased by W.E. Hill & Sons, and Paganini was so taken with it that he begged a copy that now survives in Genoa.When this came up I was surprised to see that other derivative copies did not exist. There are a number of questions about the portrait, not least the smaller format, the lack of detail within the textiles, and the absence of Paganini’s wild and long hair. Upon investigation we discovered how Patten had painted the unkempt figure of Paganini, and then blocked out his hair in order to focus on the facial expression, reinstating the hair for the final version of the painting that was exhibited to much acclaim at the Royal Academy that year. This approach may well explain how Patten avoided the gothic superficiality of most Paganini portraits and achieved such an emotionally sensitive end-result. When we acquired the painting, our suspicions were confirmed that it was the preparatory study, the result of the sitting between the artist and the painter. Patten’s masterpiece is many levels beyond this, but the candour, the briskness of the painterly approach bring a new dimension to the iconography of the world’s greatest violinist.
Connoissership at Oxford University.
For the academic world there are deep problems that arise from historic artefacts that are untethered from a record of provenance, and the violin is
