Forthcoming Volume

Volume 87 of the Walpole Society (Volume LXXXVII), which is currently in preparation, comprises a catalogue raisonné of works by the Irish-born portraitist Charles Jervas (1675–1739) compiled by Caroline Pegum of the Office of Public Works of Ireland.

A successful portraitist, picture dealer, and polyglot, who spent several years in Italy and translated Cervantes’ Don Quixote from Spanish (the translation remains in print), Jervas’s talents were prodigious. During his lifetime, he found success as a portraitist working in the Whig circles of Sir Robert Walpole and was acclaimed by his friend, Alexander Pope, to whom he taught drawing. His reputation has never quite recovered, however, from Horace Walpole’s dismissive verdict that ‘his vanity knew no encomium disproportionate to his merits’.

Pegum’s work for the first time presents a complete corpus of Jervas’s known works, alongside a timely reassessment of his career and the causes for its success. It will doubtless be an indispensable resource for present and future scholars of this fascinating and under-appreciated, period in British art. ​

Charles Jervas John Campbell, 3rd Earl of Breadalbane [Iain Caimbeul, treas Iarla Bhraghaid Albann], 1696 - 1782. (as a child in highland costume) 1708. National Galleries of Scotland.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY 

Caroline Pegum is an historian with a particular interest in British and Irish artistic training, production and patronage c.1680–c.1730. Her MPhil thesis (University of Birmingham, 2010) interrogated the artistic and literary career of the Irish-born portraitist Charles Jervas (1668/69–1739) with particular analysis of the social, political and ethnic character of his patron-base. Caroline has worked at the Office of Public Works (OPW) in Ireland and English Heritage, Christie’s auction house and the National Portrait Gallery in London. She is now editor of the OPW’s annual research journal Irish Heritage Studies, publishing new research rooted in the vast array of National Monuments, historic houses and diverse collection in the care of the Irish State.

Image courtesy Caroline Pegum