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Nannau and Early Portraiture in North Wales
Scholarship relating to 16th and 17th century British portraiture generally is still far from fully developed and a great deal of research is still needed in order that artists of this period might be identified and the patterns of patronage unravelled. Moreover, nowhere in Britain is such scholarship less developed than in Wales where the study of the visual arts has been almost entirely neglected. Although there is an awakening of interest in Welsh painting and in the work of native Welsh artists (the recent Hugh Hughes exhibition being the most tangible evidence of this) there is a vacuum that Steegman’s solitary survey of Welsh portraits (more a list than an exploration) barely begins to fill. The lack of primary written sources to study has hindered research, but as I hope this article will prove, it is essentially the consideration of the paintings themselves, their original location, dates and possible artists that is the key to unravelling their special significance. Portraiture, above all, sheds light upon the structure of local and national society as well as the expectations and aspirations of thise who were painted. In Britain, the demand for portraits was almost insatiable in the late 17th and 18th centuries and most country house’ picture colection consisted of little else.
The importance of studying portraits is indisputable but the practicalities of doing so are often far from straightforward largely because of the constant danger of dispersal. The Nannau pictures described here are a pertinent example. The house contained one of Merioneth’s most important collections of paintings and artifacts, most of which were retained by the Vaughan family when they were forced to sell their ancient seat in the 1960’s. In recent years, a gradual dispersal of the family portraits has begun and in some cases this has been disastrous. For instance, the portrait of Anne Nanney is now in France. The author purchased the remaining Nanney portraits and they have remained together, but they would otherwise certainly have become separated and would effectively have been ‘lost’. Such stories, with less happy outcomes, have been repeated throughout Wales. Peniarth stands almost alone in Merioneth in the size, quality and importance of its collections. Much of Corsygedol’s was dispersed and mmuch went to Mostyn. Hengwrt’s collection was largely destroyed in the fire. Numerous pictures were sold from Ynysymaengwyn and Nannau has not only lost its historic contents, but the house itself is now threatened with the ultimate indignity of becoming a holiday camp. The remains of these two great houses may prove to our eternal shame to be the epitaphs of culture and taste in Merioneth.
A further problem that faces the historian in relation to portraiture is establishing the true identity of the sitters. The Nannau portraits had benefitted from The Hon Mrs Vaughan’s diligent research into the family archives which established the likely identities of many sitters. However, when they were cleaned recently, the discovery of a signature and a date on the portrait of ‘A Nannau in Armour’ proved conclusively that he was Colonel Huw Nanney and not as previously surmised Huw Nanney of Dolr’hyd. His armour had been more romantically associated with the Civil War, in which this earlier Huw had allegedly played a part, rather than with his grandson’s postition as Colonel of the Merioneth Militia. There is a natural tendency to fit faces to colourful characters and fill the gaps in a collection with opportune and anonymous bodies as the recent re-appraisal of the Chirk Castle portraits demonstrated.
Bearing all these difficulties in mind, the study of the Nannau portraits remains fruitful. The family was representative (though how typical remains very difficult to judge) of a major gentry family in Merioneth and one whose real ‘arrival’ towards the end of the 16th Century coincided with the expansion of portrait painting in Britain. It was still true that outside London, the practice was rare and indeed 16th Century portraits of Welsh sitters are exceedingly scarce as they are in Scotland and Ireland. The head of the family in this period was the infamous Huw Nanney ‘Hen’ (c1550 - 1623) who was a major figure in Merioneth society and his eldest son Gruffydd served as MP for the county in 1592. Yet no portrait of either has survived and it is exceedingly unlikely that either was ever painted. Even the great Sir John Wynn of Gwydir (1553 - 1627) who was renowned for his vanity did not sit for his portrait until the second decade of the 17th Century, by which time he was a relatively old man. His powerful image is one of the most enduring in Welsh portraiture. The explanation for the absence of 16th century portraits surely lies with the expense and difficulty of finding an able artist outside London and, above all, with the absence of motive. The use of the portrait as a weapon of social and political propaganda was as effective in the galleries of great Elizabethan houses as it is today on the streets of Baghdad. Thus Huw Nanney ‘the younger’, so called because his father Gruffydd (the MP) pre-deceased Huw Nanney ‘Hen’, was responding both to the penetration of the fashion for portraiture in to West Wales and also to the desire to make a positive statement about the pre-eminence of his family., when he sat for his portrait in 1632. He succeeded as 14th ‘Lord’ of Nannau with a handsome income, with a handsome income, a newly rebuilt ‘palace’ and an established position in local society. He was High Sheriff from 1627 until 1637 and like his Grandfather, he took a bride from Corsygedol. An account of his funeral survives which emphasises both the social standing of the man and the importance attached to it’s public display, the same notions which lay behind the commssioning of his portrait. The account was written by Randle Holme of Chester, a celebrated heraldic artist. It describes Huw’s armorial bearings and continues ‘For the funerall order, first the poore, 2 and 2, then the servants of the house in Clokes, then the baner carried by a kinsman of blood: the helm and crest by an other, the Cote of armes by an other, then the precher, then the Corpes carried by the gentry of Kindred, then his sonne and heyre along, then his brethren, 2 and 2 (and so all wch have blacks according to nearness of blood), then the women in black, in like manner, then the Knights, Esquires, etc.....’. Huw’s portrait suffered over the years but it is clearly very two dimensional and stylised and even by Welsh standards it was old fashioned when it was painted in 1632. Coincidentally, this was the year that Van Dyck first settled in England and revolutionised Court painting. Yet Van Dyck was not only a genius of social engineering, he was primarily a great artist and one who could produce paintings of great beauty. Such aesthetic considerations are unlikely to have troubled Huw Nanney. His arms are prominently displayed with his motto, and his pose and clothes would have left the viewer with no doubt as to his status, thus fulfilling Huw’s prime objective. The artist’s identity remains unknown although Randle Holme may well have painted portraits and must, given his apparent connections with the family, be a distinct possibility. Chester certainly seems to have been the nearest town with an established school of painting. John Souch (c1593 - 1645) is perhaps the best known Chester portrait painter of this period and is described as showing ‘a humanised variant of the heraldic style’. Another possible candidate (though not necessarily from Chester) is one T Jones who signed and dated a Welsh portrait in 1620 and whose work was not unlike that of Gilbert Jackson, the important portraitist who himself visited Wales in 1631/2. Of considerable interest is T Leigh who painted the Davis family of Gwysaney and whose work can also be found at Peniarth. These are the only recorded artists working in North Wales at this time. There were doubtless several itinerant portrait painters in Wales in the early 17th century, but they are extremely unlikely ever to be identified.
No portrait of Huw’s son Gruffydd (1611 - c1656) appears to have survived, although it is likely that he was painted. He married the heiress of Dolaugywn, near Tywyn and the house is generously decorated with Nanney heraldry. It has been said that Nannau was burnt during the Civil War along with Ynysymaengwyn and Caergai and this would certainly help explain why Gruffydd’s son and heir Huw (1643 - 1676) was styled ‘of Dolr’hyd’. The portrait which is taken to be his on the grounds of physiognomy and date is pedestrian but a recognisable Nanney likeness is beginning to emerge which commends the talents of the different artists over the course of the years. The portrait reflects the prevailing fashions of the age, albeit weakly. There is certainly none of the luxuriance and gaiety that Lely, the predominent Court painter of the period, was capable of. Huw’s brother-in-law, William Vaughan of Corsygedol sat to Lely and although the whereabouts of the original are unknown (to the author at least) and engraving survives to prove that some Merioneth men were looking to the expensive and fashionable London painters.
Huw of Dol’rhyd had three sons, the eldest of whom, William, died young. The others, Gruffydd and Huw, succeeded in turn to Nannau and their portraints reinforce the theory (first put forward by Mrs Vaughan) that the male heirs were painted by tradition upon their succession. Gruffydd’s portrait is certainly the most charming of this group and was surely painted when he succeeded his father at the age of 8. He had the besst education possible at Eton and Cambridge and he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn (as his father had been) in 1685. This was important as it helped to ensure an understanding of the legal and financial operations of a landed estate. Gruffydd’s artist is anonymous, but there is a degree of Lely inspired sophistication in the face. It succeeds in capturing the spirit of childhood rather than simply depicting a small adult as did so many portraits of the period. It is quite possible, and on the grounds of style, likely, that the hound and the landscape were by a different hand. The backdrop of Cader and Llyn Cynwch (in the park at Nannau) add greatly to the charm and interest of the picture and although somewhat quirky and provincial, it represents an important and distinctive piece of Merioneth’s visual history.
Recorded artists working in North Wales in the 1670’s remain few. Thomas Francis was working at Chirk and Thomas Gomersall was also active in the locality around this time, but information regarding their activities and examples of their work are so few that it is impossible to know whether they ever worked at Nannau.
Gruffydd died unmarried in 1690 aged just 23 and was succeeded by his brother Huw, then aged 21. His first sitting was almost certainly to commemorate this event and now hangs in the hall at Llanfendigaid. A detailed comparison with his portrait of 1695 strongly suggests that Randle Willcocke, who signed the latter was in fact responsible for both portraits. It would certainly make sense, provided the sitter was pleased with his first portrait, to return to its creator if another was required. Little is known of Willcocke, but again we find the Nanneys looking to Chester for their artist and the Willcockes were long established there. Randle was evidently accomplished - his drapery may not dazzle but the armour is lively and the hound (if he was responsible for it) execellent. The occurrence of the hounds may be a reference to the boy’s love of racing their dogs (mentioned in the Mostyn MSS) and also as symbols of loyalty and faithfulness. Very few pictures can be positively attributed to Willcocke although there are several signed and dated portraits of the Owen family at Peniarth.
In Huw Nanney’s later portrait, the reappearance of the Nanney arms and motto together with the armour which symbolised ancient lineage as well aas martial strength, is designed to promote an image of grandeur and authority. This was quite appropriate as it was painted in 1695, the year Huw became MP for Merioneth and Colonel of the County Militia.
Arranged chronologically, the Nanney portraits reflect the family’s increasing moderenisation and sophistication which in turn was a reflection of those forces abroad in West Wales society generally. In 1697, Colonel Nanney began to rebuild his ancestral seat and the commssioning of portraits seems to have become a major priority but apparently with ‘decorative’ impact as the primary purpose rather than genealogical propaganda. Colonel Nanney and his wife, Catherine Vaughan of Corsygedol, had four daughters and the failure of the male line ended the tradition of only having the senior male line recorded in paint. There can be no mistaking the change made plain by the sheer number of early 18th century portraits at Nannau. The small head and shoulder portrait gave way to larger more versatile canvases. Anne Nanney’s portrait was in the most modern taste and by a fashionable artist, Sir John Medina. It is full of imagery from the lamb, a symbol of innocence and gentleness, to the male child - the heir that never was. However, the price of fashion was to some extent character. The honesty and sensitivity of young Gryffydd and Huw’s portraits has given way to a far more standardised, if glamorous imagery.
The Nannau inventory of December 1724 (Mostyn MSS 435) lists five pictures in the dining room and in the drawing room ‘a picture with a gilt frame about it’. Sadly, they are not identified, but doubtless several of the paintings described here would have been amongst them. The same inventory describes the silver and pewter in detail and perhaps the Vaughans did not consider the old fashioned portraits of their Nanney ancestors to be of much interest. Such was fashion and nothing counts for more when considering the changing role of portraiture. To us the Nannau pictures provide a useful mirror in which to trace the family’s evolution as well as some initial clues to the motive and changing role of portraiture in 17th century North Wales.
Miles K Wynn Cato
Pictures
Huw Nanney ‘The Younger’ (1588 - 1647)
Inscribed and dated 1632, aged 44.
Oil on canvas. Approx 32 x 26 inches.
Huw Nanney of Dolr’hyd (1643 - 1676)
Oil on canvas. 30 x 25 inches.
William Vaughan of Corsygedol (1643 - 1676)
Engraved by John Faber Jnr after Sir Peter Lely.
(British Museum Collection)
Gruffydd Nanney (1667 - 1689) Aged 8.
Oil on canvas. 33 x 26 inches. His chair marked ‘G.N 1669’ can be seen in the Welsh Folk Museum, St Fagan’s.
Huw Nanney (1669 - 1701) Aged about 21.
Oil on canvas. 30 x 25 inches.
Now hanging in the hall at Llanfendigaid.
Colonel Huw Nanney MP (1669 - 1701)
Oil on canvas. 30 x 25 inches.
Randle Wilcocke. Signed and dated 1695.
Old Nannau. Watercolour by Moses Griffith.
The house as built by Colonel Nanney in 1697.
Collection of the National Library of Wales.
Anne Nanney (1691 - 1729) Eldest daughter of Colonel Huw. Aged 6.
Sir John Medina (1659 - 1710). Signed and dated 1697.
Oil on canvas. 48 x 45 inches.
Her memorial is in Llanfachreth Church.
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