Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are pleased to offer for sale this wonderful portrait of Thomas Dixon Galpin by the renowned portrait painter Daniel Albert Wehrschmidt. The portrait is unsigned as it has been reduced in size from its original three quarter length, but, provided with the painting will be provenance for the painting from the National Portrait Gallery, who has sent a copy of an old catalogue ( see photo) showing a picture of the entire painting, with its label on the bottom of the frame showing that it was painted by Daniel Wehrschmidt and was dated 1891. This also includes a biography of Thomas Dixon Galpin. This reduction in size happened many years ago, as the age of the stretcher proves, and may have been due to many things, including damage or even war damage.

The painting depicts a head and shoulders portrait of Thomas Dixon Galpin (1828-1910), who was born in Dorchester on the 15th November 1828. After his marriage to Emma Amelia Ware (1831-1897) he entered into a partnership with George William Petter and set up a printing business as Petter and Galpin. In 1859 they entered into partnership with Mr. John Cassell, who died in 1965 and the firm became Cassell, Petter and Galpin. Thus was founded the great publishing business now known as Cassel and company of which for many years Thomas Dixon Galpin was the directing brain.

Daniel Albert Wehrschmidt, was born in Cuyahoga County near Cleveland, Ohio, USA in 1861, the son of a German immigrant tailor. He was active in Cleveland's art scene and by the age of eighteen, had already exhibited his works locally. In 1882, he met Hubert Herkomer during his ten week tour of the United States, and, impressed by the young American's work, Herkomer invited him to join him in a new venture in England, which was a school to train illustrators and painters in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Wehrschmidt took him up on the invitation and served as a teacher and eventually co-owner of the school where he remained until 1896. At this time he was living at Rose Cottage, Bushey.

He was a portrait painter in oils, mezzotint artist, and illustrator and engraver. He, along with Joseph Syddall (1864-1942), Ernest Borough Johnson (1866-1949), produced the illustrations for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Wehrschmidt himself producing eight of the plates.

By 1891, Wehrschmidt has exhibited 7 paintings, mostly portraits, although 'The Love Letter (1891) and 'Portrait of a Haymakes', revealed his interest in genre painting. After 1904, when Herkomer closed the school at Bushey, He was numerous medals for his paintings and prints, in particular at the 1904 St. Louis Exhibition and at San Francisco's Panama Pacific Exhibition in 1915. He was elected a full Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters 1n 1915 and a Member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers.

He married his wife Marie Louise Isabel Norie on 22nd July 1890 at St. Mary's Cathedral Midlothian. She exhibited two landscape paintings at the Fine Art Society in 1892. They had 6 children, of whom, sadly two of his sons were killed in action in WWI. He became a naturalised British Subject in 1890 and, due to the anti-German feeling common in Britain around the time of the first World War, anglicised his name to Veresmith. He is shown in the 1901 Census as living at 67 Burnt Ash Hill, Lee, London. He lived briefly in Co. Cork in Ireland around 1921, before moving to North Curry Somerset, where he died on 22nd February 1932. He is buried at St. Peter & Paul Church in North Curry.

He exhibited 39 paintings at the Royal Academy, 14 at the Walker in Liverpool, 12 at The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, 12 at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 17 at the Fine Art Society, 9 at the London Salon, and variously in the Provinces, as well as abroad.

There are ten of his paintings in the National Collection, which can be viewed at BBC-Your Paintings under the artist's name, including his portrait of Robert Falcon Scott, which can be viewed in Room 23 of the National Portrait Gallery.

His biographical information is available online, in The Dictionary of Victorian Painters by Christopher Wood, The Dictionary of British Artists (Collectors' Club), Benezit, and The Dictionary of British Artists by Grant Waters.

The painting has been newly framed in a 3" ornate gilt frame and will be supplied wired and ready to hang.

Image size 28 1/4" x 18" - 71.75cm x 45.75cm

Frame size 31 1/2" x 24 1/4" - 80cm x 61.55cm

Medium Oils on canvas

Condition Very good condition. There are four patches to the back of the canvas, which is now taut and clean. There is no craquelure and only faint stretcher marks consistent with age. The frame is new.