FDA-P.12-2010
Parts
Object number
FDA-P.12-2010
Object type
Identification
Title
Hon. John Damer
Leaving Portrait
Leaving Portrait
Title Type
assigned by cataloguer
series
series
Description
Half-length portrait of a young man, in Oxford academic dress
Comments
'Born 1744, eldest son of Joseph, Lord Milton (afterwards Earl of Dorchester). Entered Eton, May 25, 1755 (Mrs. F. Young's); 6th Form, 1759-60. Admitted Trinity College, Cambridge, as a nobleman, April 20, 1762. Married Anne Seymour-Conway, the sculptress. Committed suicide, August 16, 1776.'
[Source: 'Eton Leaving Portraits' Tate exhibition catalogue, 1951, p.8]
'The eldest son of Joseph Damer, Baron Milton, and 1st Earl of Dorcester. In 1765 he visited Italy. In 1767 he married Anne Seymour-Conway, the sculptress, and darling of Horace Walpole. By 1766, in spite of a huge income, he and his two brothers, with whom he had been at Eton, had contracted vast debts. His father refused to pay these or to see his sons and insisted that the elder two leave England for France. On 15 August 1776 John Damer shot himself at the Bedford Arms in Covent Garden. Horace Walpole described to Sir Horace Mann what had happened:
"On Thursday Mr Damer supped at the Bedford Arms in Covent Garden, with four common women, a blind fiddler and no other man. At three in the morning he dismissed his seraglio, bidding each receive her guinea at the bar, and ordering Orpheus to come up again in half an hour. When he returned, he found a dead silence and smelt gunpowder. He called, the master of the house came up and found Mr. Damer sitting in his chair, dead... On the table lay a scrap of paper with these words, 'The people of the house are not to blame for what has happened, which was my own act.' What a catastrophe for a man at thirty-two, heir to two and twenty thousand a year!... His brothers have gamed, but never did. He was grave... but passed his life as he died, with troops of women and the blind fiddler."
[Source: 'Leaving Portraits from Eton College' exhibition catalogue, 1991, p.29]
The sitter was a pupil at Eton from 1755 to 1760.
[Source: 'Eton Leaving Portraits' Tate exhibition catalogue, 1951, p.8]
'The eldest son of Joseph Damer, Baron Milton, and 1st Earl of Dorcester. In 1765 he visited Italy. In 1767 he married Anne Seymour-Conway, the sculptress, and darling of Horace Walpole. By 1766, in spite of a huge income, he and his two brothers, with whom he had been at Eton, had contracted vast debts. His father refused to pay these or to see his sons and insisted that the elder two leave England for France. On 15 August 1776 John Damer shot himself at the Bedford Arms in Covent Garden. Horace Walpole described to Sir Horace Mann what had happened:
"On Thursday Mr Damer supped at the Bedford Arms in Covent Garden, with four common women, a blind fiddler and no other man. At three in the morning he dismissed his seraglio, bidding each receive her guinea at the bar, and ordering Orpheus to come up again in half an hour. When he returned, he found a dead silence and smelt gunpowder. He called, the master of the house came up and found Mr. Damer sitting in his chair, dead... On the table lay a scrap of paper with these words, 'The people of the house are not to blame for what has happened, which was my own act.' What a catastrophe for a man at thirty-two, heir to two and twenty thousand a year!... His brothers have gamed, but never did. He was grave... but passed his life as he died, with troops of women and the blind fiddler."
[Source: 'Leaving Portraits from Eton College' exhibition catalogue, 1991, p.29]
The sitter was a pupil at Eton from 1755 to 1760.
Description
Content (person)
Damer, John, 1744 - 1776 (Sitter)
Inscription
Written in ink on back: 'The Hon.ble John Damer of Trinity College Cambridge Son of the Lord Milton May 176(?)...'
Materials & techniques note
Oil on canvas
Physical description
Carved gilt frame
Production
Date
1762
History and association
Object history note
Provenance: Commissioned by the sitter or his family; by whom presented to the Head Master at Eton College in c.1762
Exhibited: 'Eton Leaving Portraits', Tate Gallery, London, April to May 1951, catalogue number 4; 'Leaving Portraits from Eton College', Dulwich Picture Gallery, 18 July to 20 October 1991, catalogue number 7
Exhibited: 'Eton Leaving Portraits', Tate Gallery, London, April to May 1951, catalogue number 4; 'Leaving Portraits from Eton College', Dulwich Picture Gallery, 18 July to 20 October 1991, catalogue number 7
References
• Cust, L., Eton College Portraits, 1910 (p.14, Plate II)
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, Leaving Portraits from Eton College, exhibition catalogue 1991 (p.29)
• Graves, A. & Cronin, W. V., A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1909 (p.226)
• Waterhouse, E.K., Reynolds, 1941 (p.51)
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, Leaving Portraits from Eton College, exhibition catalogue 1991 (p.29)
• Graves, A. & Cronin, W. V., A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1909 (p.226)
• Waterhouse, E.K., Reynolds, 1941 (p.51)
