Widow Filkes & Family

Finely drawn in India ink on vellum, these true-to-life and characterful portraits depict an aged mother with her eldest son and his wife. Painted around 1734-5, they are amongst James Ferguson’s earliest portraits.

Hannah Filkes née Jephreys (1660-c1735) in her widow’s weeds is the proud matriarch of the Filkes family of Devizes, Wiltshire. Aged 20, Hannah married John Filkes/Ffilkes and by him had five children. Hannah was widowed in 1723 when she was 63. Shown alongside Hannah is her eldest son James, known as Felix, (1680-1745) who worked in the family trade as a wool stapler (a sort of middleman who bought sheep fleeces, graded them and sold them on to be woven into cloth). His dapper attire, well-rounded figure and multiple chins suggest he made a good living for himself and his family! He married (the bemused-looking) Ann Grant (1686-1761) who was the daughter of a clothier in nearby Trowbridge. They had five children.

The portraits reside in their original turned wood frames, each inscribed on the backing paper with the sitter’s details. Apart from a slight mark to the right hand edge of Ann, these miniature portraits are in excellent clean and original condition.

The artist and polymath James Ferguson was born into a poor Scottish family. With the help of his father and an elderly neighbour, he taught himself to read and write. As he grew up he developed a love for astronomy and mechanics and was engaged to several masters, some encouraging but others treating him cruelly. He began drawing his distinctive miniature portraits in 1734 whilst a guest at the Edinburgh home of Lady Dipple. So, given that Hannah Filkes died around 1735, this portrait of her is one of Ferguson’s earliest works.

Ferguson’s artistic career spanned 26 years and the money he earned from it enabled him to study anatomy, surgery and physics. Ultimately it was his love of astronomy that was to dominate his life and career and he published several books on the subject from 1745 onwards.