Captain Cockburn

There’s an attractive informality to this portrait that suggests the sitter and the artist may have been friends. The sitter is D. L. Cockburn, his initials engraved on a gilt metal plaque on the reverse of the frame. Seated, he wears a red coat with a standing white collar and brass buttons and has gold braid epaulettes. Note too his gold pinky ring!

With only initials to go on, it’s proved impossible to accurately identify the sitter. Militia regiments were regularly stationed in the Bath area during the early 1800s, as witnessed and written about by Jane Austen.

Tayler’s works display neat draftsmanship and a good use of colour. Housed with a metal mount within a gilt-metal frame backed with leather, the portrait and frame are in excellent condition.

Born in Newport on the Isle of Wight in May 1797, Charles Foot Tayler was the second son of William Tayler, an architect, and his wife Susanna Foot Taylor. He first exhibited miniatures at the Royal Academy in 1820 and shortly thereafter moved to Bath where he would have been assured of a steady clientele amongst the well-to-do visitors who flocked to the popular spa town. It was there too that he met and married 17 year old Ann Thomas, a baker’s daughter, in 1828. Together they had two sons and a daughter. Ann died in 1847 and three years later Tayler married Sarah Matilda Morres and added another son and another daughter to the family. Charles Foot Tayler died in Bath in 1853 aged 56.

Ivory Registration: H5UW4FT9