Attributed to Adam de Colone, 
Dutch 1572-1651- 
Portrait of John Hay, 8th Lord Hay of Yester,...

Attributed to Adam de Colone, 
Dutch 1572-1651- 

Portrait of John Hay, 8th Lord Hay of Yester, later 1st Earl of Tweeddale, half-length, in a black and white slashed doublet and white lace collar; 

oil on canvas, dated 'AETATIS. 33 / 1628' (upper left), 64.2 x 55.4 cm. 

Provenance: 
The Marquess' of Tweeddale, Yester House, East Lothian and by descent. 
'The Most Hon. The Dowager Marchioness of Tweeddale and the Trustees of the Most Hon. the late Marquess of Tweeddale' sale, Christie's, London, 1 May 1970, lot 45 (as 'G. Jackson'), £178.10. 
Property of the late Hugo Morley-Fletcher, MA FSA (1940-2022). 

Exhibited: 
Edinburgh, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, ‘Painting in Scotland 1570-1650’, August-September 1975, no.52 (as 'Adam de Colone'). 

Literature: 
J. Bullock, 'George Jamesone the Scottish Vandyck', Edinburgh, 1885, p.182, no.182, as 'George Jameson'. 
D. Thomson, 'The Life and Art of George Jamesone', Oxford, 1974, under Appendix B, 'Portraits attributed to Adam de Colone', p.149, no.22, as 'George Jameson'.  

Note: 
John Hay, 1st Earl of Tweedale (1595-1654) was a leading promoter of the National Covenant, an agreement signed by many people of Scotland during 1638, opposing the proposed reforms of the Church of Scotland (also known as the Kirk) by King Charles I. He was made an Earl in 1646. 

‘Attributed to Jamesone by Bullock. Like its companion [Portrait of Margaret Hay], it has more recently borne an attribution to Gilbert Jackson. It has, however, none of that painter's characteristic naiveté: it does have many of those features which have been noted as characteristic of de Colone and is by the same hand as… above. Lord Hay of Yester, though a signatory to the Solemn League and Covenant, remained acceptable to Charles I and was created Earl of Tweeddale in 1646.’ (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, ‘Painting in Scotland 1570-1650’ exhibition catalogue, p.55). 

The sitter would have been an important sitter for the artist. He was - as part of the interconnected Scottish network of patrons and just as part of the wider Hay family - cousins with George Hay, Earl of Kinnoull, who sat to Adam de Colone, who in turn produced two portrait types of him, and Anne Hay, Countess of Winton, who sat to the artist at least twice. 

Adam de Colone clearly employed at least one studio assistant. While he wasn’t in the British Isles for long, there are versions of his full-length depiction of James VI and I (at full-length, three-quarter-length and half-length) that appear to be painted with the assistance of another hand, to meet the demand for copies of this particular composition. It is entirely possible therefore that the present lot was painted by both Adam de Colone and a studio assistant. The present work would have been a one-off composition of an important sitter and so it would have been very unlikely if the master was not involved in its production at all. 

A note on the collection:

The following 14 lots belonged to the late Hugo Morley-Fletcher, the great European Ceramics specialist who worked at Christie’s for over 40 years and appeared on the BBC’s 'Antiques Roadshow' for over 25 years.

Hugo was born in 1940 and spent the Second World War in his mother’s family’s ancestral home, Yester House near Edinburgh. Yester was built between 1699 and 1728 for the Marquesses of Tweeddale. In 1729 the 4th Marquess commissioned William Adam to carry out alterations, particularly to the interiors, but William died before the work was completed, and it wasn’t until his sons Robert and John Adam resumed work on it in 1759 that it was completed in the early 1760s. Yester is one of Scotland’s finest houses and its architecture, plasterwork and contents had a profound impact upon Hugo. His mother was also a talented sculptor, so art was in his blood. Shortly after his grandfather the 11th Marquess died in the late 1960s, the house was sold, along with a lot of the contents.

Hugo had his own rather eccentric aristocratic style and sense of panache in tandem with an unerring confidence; this was off-putting to some, but utterly captivating to others. Working with Hugo at Christie’s was, at times, a little challenging, but it was certainly never dull. He loved wearing his green 'loden' cape that he had bought in Vienna, yet paradoxically, Hugo always retained his sense of Britishness. On one occasion, over 20 years ago, when we were in a tiny railway station in the middle of nowhere in Germany, we were struggling to get a ticket machine to work when a local kindly intervened to help. He then asked if we had been there the previous year. When we confirmed that we had, and asked why he asked, he replied that he remembered Hugo’s red socks!

Hugo had a natural eye for art, frequently cutting straight to the key points of an object. His understanding extended beyond ceramics to encompass pictures and other decorative arts, and he had the ability to identify the best artwork in a room filled with things, whether it was ceramic or something different. He had a prodigious memory, priding himself in his ability to memorise the position of objects within a client’s house and retain that memory many years after the visit. He also had the ability to give a summary value of a collection after only the briefest of visits. He was often generous with his knowledge, but on other occasions would withhold it as a test. The study groups of saucers and small objects in this sale illustrate some of the fascinating complexities found in ceramics, and they would be an excellent vehicle for teaching.

Hugo was a fine linguist and was completely untroubled by taking auctions in a variety of different languages. He also had a natural curiosity and understanding of other cultures, and Continental friends and clients were frequently surprised and impressed by his knowledge of both their history and current affairs, which often surpassed their own. His almost encyclopaedic knowledge of Royal and aristocratic families in Britain and the Continent meant that he understood how these families and historical events shaped the creation of ceramics of time, and as he once reminded me, with the creation of ceramics, ‘there is always someone writing a cheque’.

Hugo was a tour-de-force in the ceramics world, publishing a number of specialist books included 'Investing in English Pottery and Porcelain' (1968), Meissen (1970), 'Meissen in Colour' (1971) and the 'Pflueger collection of Early European Porcelain and Faience' (1994). When he joined Christie’s in 1963 the market was dominated by Sotheby’s under the auspices of the great Tim Clarke. By the 1970s Hugo had reversed this. Two of the iconic sales of the 1970s were a highly important collection which was sold anonymously in March and October 1977, making a huge amount of money at the time. These were followed by many others.

Later in his life Hugo became Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Dyers in the City of London which ushered in his charitable work with the Boucher Church of England Primary School, a disadvantaged school in East London. Hugo gave lessons in French and Latin, and in particular he was keen to promote reading, instigating the practice of the Dyers to donate a book to every pupil of the school each year.

Sixty-four lots of ceramics and furniture from the collection will be included in our Fine and Decorative auction on 11th March. 

Text courtesy of Dominic Simpson, Consultant and former Head of European Ceramics at Christie’s.