Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/arthur-devis-2799" aria-label="More by Arthur Devis" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Arthur Devis</a>
James Family
Purchased 1941
actions: expressive
adults
architecture
children
diplomat
family
family
features
girl
groups
holding hands
James family
James, Ann
James, Elizabeth
James, Mary
James, Robert
lake
landscape
man
named families
named individuals
people
portraits
public service
society
urn
water: inland
woman
wooded
work and occupations
<p>This group portrait shows Robert James, together with his wife Mary and two daughters Elizabeth and Ann. James, aged fifty-one at this time, was for many years Secretary to the East India Company. Devis specialized in painting fashionable small-scale portrait groups or 'conversation pieces’ set in domestic interiors or spacious parkland. Although such pictures were intended to portray family groups in a private setting, they can often appear quite formal, and in Devis’s case, even stiff. However, for a man such as James, a display of material wealth and worldly success was perhaps more meaningful than family intimacy.</p><p><em>Gallery label, May 2007</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
12 July 2004 – 20 June 2005
2005-06-20
12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-07-12
Portraits and Perspectives
Collection based display
The James Family
support: 984 × 1245 mm
frame: 1215 × 1465 × 92 mm
Purchased 1941
<p>This group portrait shows Robert James, together with his wife Mary and two daughters Elizabeth and Ann. James, aged fifty-one at this time, was for many years Secretary to the East India Company. Devis specialized in painting fashionable small-scale portrait groups or 'conversation pieces’ set in domestic interiors or spacious parkland. Although such pictures were intended to portray family groups in a private setting, they can often appear quite formal, and in Devis’s case, even stiff. However, for a man such as James, a display of material wealth and worldly success was perhaps more meaningful than family intimacy.</p>

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2007-05-02T00:00:00
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actions: expressive adults architecture children diplomat family family features girl groups holding hands James, Ann James, Elizabeth James family James, Mary James, Robert lake landscape man named families named individuals people portraits public service society urn water: inland woman wooded work and occupations