Mr Hope of Amsterdam playing Cricket with his Friends
Jean Francois (le Romain) Sablet, 1792

This full-length portrait is of a cricketer at the wicket. The bat is of a curiously primitive club shape, longer than normal for the period, and the wicket is lower than the regulation 22 inches. The wicket-keeper prepares to stop the ball with a cloak. Although the painting is signed at Rome, Mount Vesuvius is seen erupting in the background. Sablet, who was Swiss by birth, spent most of his working life in France. The subject was the son of John Hope, merchant banker of Amsterdam. The portrait was painted while, as a young man of twenty-two, he was making the grand tour, studying architecture, and laying the foundations of the celebrated collection of antiquities which he afterwards housed at Deepdene House, Dorking. His grand-daughter, Henrietta Adela, married the 6th Duke of Newcastle.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Mr Hope of Amsterdam playing Cricket with his Friends, 1792
Date supported
1968
Medium and material
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
62 x 50 cm
Grant
1500
Total cost
9975
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