Pair of Watercolour Family Portraits by James Holmes (1777-1860)

A fine pair of watercolour portraits of the Hunt family by James Holmes (1777-1860). The pair of works beautifully depict a whole family spread of the two paintings one in a music room and the other in a classically imagined landscape setting. The first shows the father Reverend Thomas Hunt with his daughter Harriet and sons Thomas and Charles. The second shows the mother Jane with her daughter Caroline and son William. The pair are both wonderfully detailed and are signed to the lower right ‘J Holmes’ and dated to what looks like 1838. James Holmes was at an early age apprenticed to the well-known engraver Robert Mitchell Meadows. He began attending the Royal Academy schools in 1796 and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798. From 1798 to 1849 Holmes exhibited 21 paintings at the Royal Academy, including two miniatures (Miss Emma E. Kendrick and Portraits of the infant children of J. Harlop, Esq.) in 1819 and one miniature in 1848. He became a water colourist and in 1813 became a member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, exhibiting there two of his paintings, Hot Porridge and The Married Man. He continued exhibiting there until 1820. In 1822 he resigned from the Society of Painters in Water Colours, and became in 1824 a founding member of the Society of British Artists, and a frequent exhibitor, chiefly in miniatures, until 1850; he was the president of the Society in 1829. He had a successful practice as a portrait painter in miniature. Two of his miniature portraits of Lord Byron were engraved. Holmes’s portraiture of George IV lead to a personal friendship in which they played music together. This pair of works is very unusual and must have been commissioned directly by the family. The works are in good condition although there is some fading as would be expected. The pair retain the original gilt frames which have suffered extensive loses over the years but which have simply been covered over, this actually works rather well and gives the pieces a great faded country house look. The two also retain all the family history regarding the sitters on the reverse. This is an extremely rare and interesting pair of family portraits by a great artist, with a huge amount of decorative appeal.