Page 15 - Francis Cotes - A winning end-game
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A winning end-game
Fra ncis Cotes, William Ea rle Welby
And His wife Penelo pe
The double portrait of William linking the couple, echoes this contrast, with
Earle Welby and his wife the dull brown of the leather-bound mock
Penelope, painted by Francis Cotes volumes enclosing the pink-tinted ends, a
in 1769, is one of the most blend picked up yet again in Welby’s dull-
enchanting of late eighteenth-century marriage gold waistcoat with its heavy frogging, and his
portraits. More than that, it is the first known s ofter, pink velvet collar. At first glance, in
chess-playing portrait in British art, unique terms of the accepted hierarchy of the day,
among society paintings. Its charm derives Cotes keeps to convention: William stands, as
b oth from Cotes’s suggestion of the warm the head of a family should do, while his wife
relationship between the young couple, and sits, gracefully, beside him. The difference in
from the combination of a carefully thought- their hands, pointing to the board, reinforces
out pose and a feeling of spontaneity, as if the this: William’s is leaner, browner, his finger
subjects have been caught at a particular and thumb straight and taut, Penelope’s softer,
moment that unwittingly reveals a great deal. paler, plumper, modestly curved. But this is a
painting with a twist which repays a closer
The underlying formality, appropriate to a look. Unusually, both William and Penelope
marriage, is enhanced by the division into two engage the spectator directly, looking out of the
clear halves, with William standing against the portrait, bright eyed and amused. It is
plain, masculine background, and Penelope impossible not to look at each of them in turn,
seated, leaning forward slightly, against the then back again –so although the painting is a
feminine pink of the richly swagged curtain, ‘convers ation piece’ it is not a conversation
and the deeper pink of her chair, props for a between the sitters but rather between each
g rand court portrait The chess board itself, sitter and the viewer.
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