Looking East

James Justinian Morier & Nineteenth-Century Persia

Questions of Attribution: The Portrait of James Justinian Morier in the Columbia University Art Collection

Allyson Richardson

Introduction: Current Attribution and Questions

The three-quarter-length portrait of the British writer and diplomat James Justinian Morier (c. 1780-1849) in the Columbia University art collection is currently attributed to the British artist George Henry Harlow (1787-1819). Morier is depicted in Qajar Persian dress, wearing a vivid red and deep purple costume with golden embroidery. He gazes serenely in the distance, holding a large book in his left hand, and resting his right arm on a sheet of paper placed on a table. It is as if he had been caught in a moment of contemplation while reviewing an important manuscript. Over his left shoulder, the silhouette of a building loosely evoking Persian architecture can be seen through green vegetation, including palm trees, while massive columns and a balustrade separate him from this "exotic" landscape (Fig. 1), as noted also by Yixu Chen in her essay "Encounter with a Dreamland: A Reading of James Justinian Morier's Portrait in the Columbia University Art Collection."

The portrait is attributed to Harlow based on evidence found in the archival files kept at Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML). Indeed, several documents in the file list Harlow as the artist, including a 1928 purchase receipt associated with George Plimpton, the former owner of the painting. However, these archival documents offer only circumstantial evidence, as the painting is not signed and, as of yet, no primary sources confirm Harlow's authorship. In addition, Harlow is documented as having traveled to Italy for a significant portion of the year 1818 -- the year the portrait was allegedly painted -- which raises the question of how he could have portrayed Morier at this date, as the latter was living in Britain at the time.1

Numerous questions emerge from this lack of evidence: is Harlow the actual painter of the portrait? If so, when did he paint it? How does the alleged portrait date of 1818 and Harlow’s travels in Italy at the time impact the reliability of the current attribution? How does the painting fit within Harlow’s oeuvre? Should the painting instead be attributed to another artist, and if so, who? This paper attempts to address these questions, first on the basis of the documents kept at RBML, then through a discussion of the Morier portrait in relation to Harlow’s larger artistic output. Considering the lingering problems posed by the current attribution, the paper also considers another artist -- John Partridge (1789-1872) -- as the potential artist. The paper concludes with the set of questions remaining to be answered, and the related research that still needs to be conducted, in order to resolve the question of the portrait's attribution.

Archival Evidence

The earliest piece of evidence in RBML attesting to Harlow as the author of the Morier portrait is a purchase receipt dated September 5, 1928. The receipt documents George Plimpton purchasing an “Oil Painting: A Portrait of James Justinian Morier, by George Henry Harlow, framed” for £65 from the Booksellers and Fine Art Dealers, Chas. J. Sawyer, Ltd., of London (Fig. 2). In addition, shipping details from September 16, 1928 (Fig. 3), and an updated invoice from November 3, 1928 (Fig. 4), which indicates payment from Plimpton to Sawyer for the portrait, are included in the file. These invoices and shipping details confirm that in 1928, George Plimpton purchased a portrait of James Justinian Morier that was by George Henry Harlow, but there is no information confirming this attribution.

The next pieces of evidence listing Harlow as the artist date from the 1950s. On January 10, 1956, George Plimpton’s son, Calvin H. Plimpton, wrote the introduction to the “George Arthur Plimpton Collection of Portraits of English Authors.” The portrait of Morier is listed on page 4, as “By G. H. Harlow 1787-1819. Hajji Baba of Isphahan (sic)” (Fig. 5). Another document, “The Plimpton Portraits Card Catalog” from 1987, lists the Morier portrait as part of a collection of “Portraits of Literary Figures, Plimpton Collection. Bequeathed to Columbia University by the will of Mrs. George A. Plimpton, August 1, 1950” (Fig. 6). These notecards attest to the sitter, artist, size, and provenance of each work, and included in the notes about the Morier portrait is the following: “On the back of the canvas is written: 'Hajee Baba Oct. 28, 1818.'” This information seems useful in that it provides some supporting evidence of a date for the execution of the painting. However, since Morier's novel The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan was not published until 1824, the inscription would have to post-date the creation of the painting. More disappointing is that this inscription is no longer visible on the painting. Harlow as the artist was listed in a document dated May 8, 1961 by Alfred Jakstas, a conservator in Massachusetts, who proposed in his conservation treatment: “flattening of the tears, filling them with gesso, wax relining with new linen, restretching on a new basswood stretcher, removal of the old varnish films, inpainting of the paint losses, and recoating with a synthetic resin” (Fig. 7). The portrait was relined, presumably by Jakstas; the inscription is no longer visible, and there is no photographic evidence of the earlier back of the canvas. In fact, on the occasion of the cleaning of the painting in Summer 2018, conservator Paul Himmelstein attempted to use infrared photography to find traces of this original inscription, but was unsuccessful, suggesting either that the inscription does not exist or that it was written in a medium that cannot be seen under infrared light.

In sum, the purchase invoice (1928), the conservation recommendation (1961), and the information in the Portrait Catalog (1987) all list Harlow as the author of the Morier portrait. There is no further evidence linking the portrait to Harlow, and the dating of the painting proves problematic considering Harlow’s timeline. In this context, it is necessary to examine the formal qualities of the Morier portrait in light of portraits confirmed as Harlow’s, in order to evaluate how the painting might fit within his oeuvre. It is important to note that the comparisons below are based on digital images, except for the Morier portrait at Columbia which has been inspected in person. The comparative examples below have been selected in order to offer some general stylistic observations; in-person examination and technical analysis would be indispensable to corroborate any of these preliminary observations.

Current Attribution: George Henry Harlow (1787-1819)

Born on June 10, 1787, and dying of a throat tumor on February 4, 1819 at the young age of thirty-one, George Henry Harlow had great success as a portraitist during his short career. He entered the studio of the celebrated artist Thomas Lawrence in 1803 and began exhibiting his works at the Royal Academy in London in 1804.2
 Harlow remained in Lawrence’s studio for less than two years, as it was believed that “he quarreled with the mechanical art to which he was set and the cold courtesy of his master.”3
Despite the brevity of this tutelage, the influence of Lawrence’s style of portraiture on Harlow’s own work was significant. Lawrence was known for carrying on “the great tradition of society portraiture and raised it to new heights of dash and elegance, though not of psychological penetration.”4
 Indeed, Lawrence painted idealized likenesses of his sitters, and as such, became widely popular among a fashionable clientele. His engaging portraits “exhibit a fluid touch, rich colour, and great ability to realize textures. He presented his sitters in a dramatic, sometimes theatrical, manner that produced Romantic portraiture of a high order.”5
 

Following in Lawrence’s footsteps, Harlow also specialized in portraiture, and was known as an “excellent draughtsman, and his portraits, whether in oils, pencil, chalk, or crayon, show much sensitivity.”6
 In his Dictionary of Artists of the English School, Samuel Redgrave commented: “Harlow’s chief excellence will be found in his portraits. In 1815, he commenced a series of small size [portraits], of the eminent painters and some of the notorieties of the day; they are refined, yet broadly finished, and full of character.”7
Based on the alleged date of 1818 for the Morier portrait, two portraits by Harlow from 1817, one of James Northcote (Fig. 8) and the other of Henry Fuseli (Fig. 9), are good examples for comparison. Although attribution cannot be determined solely on the basis of stylistic elements (especially when working from digital reproductions), these comparisons are meant as a preliminary investigation into Harlow’s oeuvre and its relation to the Morier portrait.

In terms of composition and style, variances are perceptible between the Morier portrait and the Northcote and Fuseli ones. Morier is depicted within an architectural setting, with a scenic view of a monument unfolding behind him, whereas Fuseli and Northcote are depicted in ambiguous spaces without clearly defined backgrounds. As such, the portrait of Morier feels much more staged. While the difference in setting is the most noticeable, the style also shows variations. Northcote and Fuseli's faces and hands seem to be painted more carefully than Morier’s. Where Morier’s hands seem loosely done (especially his left hand), Fuseli's and Northcote’s hands are detailed and complex, with Harlow capturing every vein and bone, as can be seen most clearly in Fuseli’s right hand, clutching the arm of his chair. All three portraits show individualized features, but Fuseli and Northcote seem to be posing less. These general observations do not deny or confirm attribution of the Morier portrait to Harlow; numerous other factors, stylistic and otherwise, remain to be analyzed.

Following his exhibition of three paintings at the Royal Academy in 1818, Harlow departed on June 22, 1818 for Italy, returned to Britain on January 13, 1819, and died at his home in London on February 4, 1819.8
 Following his death, numerous auctions of his works were held, including an "Exhibition of paintings and drawings of the late Mr George Henry Harlow" held at 87 Pall Mall in London in 1819 (Fig. 10). Two sales were held at Fosters on June 21, 1819; one sale was held at Christies on June 3, 1820 (Fig. 11).9
 The portrait of Morier does not appear in any of the related catalogues, but no decisive conclusion can be drawn from this fact as the painting may have been in Morier's or Morier's family's possession at the time. In such cases, it would have been at the owner’s discretion to exhibit or sell the painting. If the date of 1818 for this portrait is in fact incorrect, then Harlow being in Italy in 1818 is irrelevant, but this suggests more questions that remain unanswered as to other prospective dates. In particular, further research into the provenance of the painting prior to its sale to George Plimpton in 1928 would be necessary but was beyond the scope of this essay or exhibition project. In light of the uncertainty of the attribution of the Morier portrait to Harlow, other nineteenth-century British artists should be considered as potential artists, one of which might be John Partridge, as he can be directly linked through documentation to at least one portrait of Morier, the location of which today is unknown.

New Candidate for Attribution: John Partridge (1789-1872)

Two sources connect John Partridge -- a successful artist, who, like Harlow, specialized in portraiture -- to a portrait of Morier. The first source is a portrait of Morier documented in the catalogue of an auction held at Robinson & Fisher on Tuesday, March 13, 1883. Lot 101 corresponds to a “Portrait of Morier (Author of Hajji Baba)” by John Partridge (Fig. 12). A second source, that seemingly relates to the later auction record, comes from the Catalogue of the Third and Concluding Exhibition of National Portraits Commencing with the Fortieth Year of the Reign of George the Third and ending with the year MDCCCLXVII, published in 1868. This source lists Partridge as the author of a portrait of Morier described as follows:

Traveller and Novelist; b. 1780; made, when young, an extensive journey through the East, which he described in his “Travels through Persia, Armenia, Asia Minor, to Constantinople;” as British Envoy in Teheran, 1810-1816; publs. After his return, “A Second Journey to Persia,” and the novels, “Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan,” “Zohrab, or the Hostage,” &c., containing descriptions of manners, customs, and life in the East; d. 1848. To waist, seated at table; full face; holding pen, writing materials before him. Canvas, 36 x 28 in.”10
 (Fig. 13)

Unfortunately, this description effectively eliminates the portrait as the one in Columbia’s art collection, as it does not mention that the sitter is depicted wearing Qajar costume -- a central characteristic that would not have been left out. Furthermore, the Columbia portrait depicts Morier holding a book, not a pen, and he is portrayed in three-quarter-length, not to the waist. Finally, the dimensions do not match, as the Columbia portrait, measuring 30 x 26 inches, is slightly smaller than the one listed in the Catalogue (36 x 28 inches). It is possible that Partridge painted more than one portrait of Morier, and that the portrait auctioned in 1883 is not the same as the one listed in the Catalogue. What this new research suggests, however, is that much more research on Partridge's portraiture practice is needed to determine if the Columbia portrait of Morier could be affiliated with this undiscovered portrait of him by Partridge.

Conclusion

The portrait of Morier in the Columbia art collection raises many intriguing attribution questions. While documents kept at RBML list Harlow as the artist as early as 1928, no conclusive evidence has been found to definitively attribute the painting to this artist. However, in light of the current state of research, the painting should retain its attribution to Harlow until further technical analysis and archival research can be performed. Pivotal questions that remain to be addressed include:

  1. The provenance of the portrait prior to its acquisition by George Plimpton in 1928;
  2. Information regarding the conservation work that the portrait underwent in 1961; and
  3. Further stylistic analysis of George Henry Harlow’s portraits and the Morier portrait.

 

  • 1Annette Peach, “Harlow, George Henry (1787-1819), painter,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, February 15, 2018, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/….
  • 2“Catalogue Entry for George Henry Harlow’s Self-Portrait,” https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436631, 2012.
  • 3Samuel Redgrave, A Dictionary of Artists of the English School (London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, 1878), 198.
  • 4"Sir Thomas Lawrence," Encyclopedia of World Biography (27 Feb. 2018), https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts….
  • 5“Sir Thomas Lawrence,” Encyclopedia Britannica (27 Feb. 2018), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Lawrence.
  • 6Annette Peach, “Harlow, George Henry (1787–1819), painter,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (9 Feb. 2018).
  • 7Samuel Redgrave, A Dictionary of Artists of the English, 198.
  • 8Annette Peach, “Harlow, George Henry (1787–1819), painter,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (9 Feb. 2018).
  • 9Annette Peach, “Harlow, George Henry (1787–1819), painter,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (9 Feb. 2018).
  • 10South Kensington Museum, Catalogue of the Third Concluding Exhibition of National Portraits Commencing with the Fortieth Year of the Reign of George the Third and ending with the year MDCCCLXVII (London: South Kensington Museum, 1868), 96.