Page 9 - Francis Cotes - A winning end-game

Preface

I have rarely coveted or felt a greater urge to ‘possess’ a painting than in the case of Francis Cote’s Double
Welby Portrait. When I say ‘possess’ I do not mean the urge just to buy it in order to have had it, and
then to resell at a later date, content to know that this piece has passed through one’s hands. No, it is a
mild case of ‘fatal attraction’, love at first sight or whichever way you would have it. The painting in ques-
tion is, of course, without doubt a physically beautiful ‘conversation piece’ and a sheer pleasure to behold. It is
something that I would love to hold on to, cherish, admire, enjoy, preferably perched over a grand fireplace or a
suitable console table and housed in an authentic Georgian rectory with the scent of freshlybaked soda bread
wafting from the kitchen! Such are dreams made of. But the attraction has a more profound basis and is something
that somewhat startled me since, for several decades, my taste has been synonymous with the Italian baroque
and a sense of incense that pervades the Counter Reformation brushwork of my favourite artists. Here, once
again, for the third time in three years I find myself intimately involved with an English picture.Clearly, as I
had noted in a recent Foreword, one’s tastes change. Is evo lve the right expression or maybe ‘mature’ is more
appropriate? To my great surprise I find myself making an almost daily visit tripping up the stairs to the upper
gallery to enjoy the company of the Welby couple and to be able to commune with them for a few minutes.
Have I ever felt this urge before even with the greatest masterpieces that have passed through the gallery – Fra
Angelico, Gentile da Fabriano, Bronzino, Gentileschi, Ribera, Sanchez Cotan, Melendez, Ingres and so on
–strangely no. So what is it that is so beguiling about the Cotes, a painting by a master usually considered to be
in the second division but who in the Welby portrait soars into the premier league?

There is no doubt that the portrait of this seemingly happily married pair, William and Penelope, is indeed
exceedingly beguiling. There is an intimacy and lack of frigidity which is unusual in this representation but there
is more. The Welbys look out of the composition and their gaze engages the viewer. If you stand some ten feet
back in front of the image their gazes converge upon you the spectator. You have interrupted their game and they
invite you to participate in their playful fantasy. But this is more than a fantasy. It is a comment on a closely
knit marital relationship, as Jenny Uglow elucidates in the following pages. We may all be nothing but pawns
in the perpetual game of the war of the sexes, habitually seen as the playthings of the Gods yet Francis Cotes,

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