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Henry Pickering
c. 1720-c. 1771
Aaron Orme (1707-1782) Master of the Cheshire Fox Hounds
1769
Oil on canvas In a painted stone cartouche
30 x 25 ins, 76.2 x 63.5cms
Signed & dated 1769
About the Sitter
Coming from an old Cheshire family, Aaron Orme was a prosperous Manchester fustian manufacturer.
By his third wife, Margaret Walmsley, he had 13 children. They included Daniel Orme, (painter and engraver), Edward (engraver and London property developer), and William (painter).
About the Artist
Henry Pickering may have been trained by Thomas Hudson. He studied for some time in Italy before returning to London in 1745.
He was successful and talented. From the 1750s he became an itinerant portrait painter, based in prosperous Manchester and working in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and north Wales. His sitters were mainly squires, baronets, and aldermen and their families. His style, however, did not change much with the times and he was eventually overshadowed by the influence further south of Reynolds and Gainsborough.
Pickering’s style in this 1769 portrait is similar to that of Joseph Wright who was working in Liverpool from late 1768 to the autumn of 1771.
Provenance
Christie’s South Kensington
10 June 1999, lot 45 (as Circle of Joseph Wright of Derby)