[General Sir Andrew Francis Barnard, army officer and courtier.] Autograph Letter Signed (‘A F Barnard’) to ‘Augustus’, providing information regarding pictures [in the royal collection], and ‘the Clue to their History’.

Author: 
General Sir Andrew Francis Barnard (1773-1855), distinguished Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army, decorated for his services during the Napoleonic Wars, and Equerry to King George IV
Publication details: 
18 December 1842; Canford [i.e. Canford House, Dorsetshire].
£60.00
SKU: 23948

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. From 1821 to the end of his life Barnard served as a courtier, notably as Equerry to King George IV, and it would appear that the present item is written in response to an enquiry made to the recipient of the letter regarding paintings in the royal collection. He writes from Camford House, where Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, had taken up residence. 4pp, 12mo. On bifolium with thin mourning border. In fair condition, on aged paper. Folded twice. Begins: ‘The three Ladies in the Picture of the Prince of Wales playing on the Violoncello, are his three sisters, viz. the (afterwards) Dutchess [sic] of Brunswick the Princess Amelia, I forget who the third married but will let you know tomorrow - The Prince is evidently stepping out of tune and working away in true Amateur style, [Barnard was himself a Governor of the Royal Academy of Music] this is perceptible in his attitude & were it not the young Lady with a book in her hand shews it by her Countenance and by her stopping her ears’. He considers the picture ‘a very clever one’, and attributes it to ‘Nollekins the father of the Sculptor’ (i.e. ‘Old Nollekins’, Joseph Francis Nollekins, 1702-1748). In ‘the picture of Charles the Second dancing with the Queen of Bohemia at the Ball given at the Hague by the States general’ he has ‘made out many of the figures’, and has also done so ‘at the one representing the Time with a Club drinking punch and Port - the one opposite where the Prince is peeping thro the door half open has the names of all the parties written on the back of it’. If the enquirer ‘wants information about any of the others I know a little about most of them and should be happy to communicate all that I have learned to any one about to print as it is a great pity that the Clue to their History should be lost’.