LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON) - photo 1
LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON) - photo 2
LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON) - photo 3
LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON) - photo 4
LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON) - photo 5

LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON)

Lot 33
02.12.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1511756
Lot 33 | LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON)
Estimate value
£ 200 000 – 300 000
LEMUEL FRANCIS ABBOTT (LEICESTERSHIRE C. 1760-1802 LONDON)
Portrait of Horatio, Viscount Nelson (1758-1805), half-length, in rear-admiral's uniform, wearing the Star and Ribbon of the Bath and the Naval Gold Medal
oil on canvas
29 7/8 x 24 ¾ in. (75.8 x 63 cm.)
a label affixed to the reverse, inscribed by Frederick Locker-Lampson: 'This Picture was painted by Abbot at / my Grandfathers, as a present from N / to my Grandfather, He afterwards sat / to Abbot for a similar sized picture / for Lord Nelson & tho' Abbot repeated / the picture some forty, or more times / Ld Nelson only sat to him twice / I have heard my aunt Eliza (the / little child playing with the dog in the / Family Picture) say that this Picture / was painted soon after Nelson lost his / arm, & she remembers helping N. / on and off with his uniform coat, in / which he sat for this picture, before and / after the sittings. F.L. 1872'




Provenance

Presented by the sitter to his mentor Captain William Locker (1731-1800), and by descent to his grandson,
Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821-1895), Rowfant, Sussex, and by descent to his son,
Godfrey Locker-Lampson (1875-1946), Rowfant, Sussex, from whom presumably acquired in October 1923 by the following,
with Knoedler & Co., New York, where acquired on 22 November 1924 for £2,650 by,
Allethaire L. Rotan, née Ludlow (1880-1977), Philadelphia.
Anonymous sale [The Property of a Lady]; Christie's, London, 22 June 1979, lot 133, where acquired by the following,
with Leggatt Bros., London, from whom acquired by the father of the present owner.



Literature

F. Locker-Lampson, My Confidences: an auto-biographical sketch addressed to my descendants, London, 1896, p. 39.
A.V. Baillie, 'Rowfant, Sussex, a Seat of Mr. G.L.T. Locker-Lampson, M.P.', Country Life, L, 26 November 1921, pp. 688 and 692, visible in fig. 4.
'Art Notes', Apollo, XXXIII, May 1941, p. 132.
O. Warner, ‘A New Portrait of Nelson?’, Country Life, CXXII, 8 August 1957, p. 253.
O. Warner, Portrait of Lord Nelson, London, 1958, p. 132.
O. Warner, A Portrait of Lord Nelson, London, 1963, pp. 34 and 139.
C. Oman, Nelson, Westport, rev. ed., 1970, p. 264.
E. Bradford, Nelson: The Essential Hero, London, 1977, p. 166.
R. Walker, Regency Portraits, London, 1985, I, pp. 359 and 360.
C. Hibbert, Nelson: A Personal History, London, 1994, pp. 130 and 131.
R. Walker, The Nelson Portraits: An Iconography of Horatio, Viscount Nelson, K.B. Vice Admiral of the White, London, 1998, pp. 39-41, 200 and 201, no. 13, with incorrect illustration.
C. Aslet, The Story of Greenwich, London, 1999, p. 10.
A. Kidson, Earlier British Paintings in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Norwich, 1999, pp. 35 and 36, note 3.
C. White, 1797 Nelson's Year of Destiny, Stroud, 2001, pp. 132 and 135, with incorrect illustration.
T. Coleman, The Nelson Touch: The Life and Legend of Horatio Nelson, Oxford, 2002, pp. 143 and 144.
A. Lambert, Nelson: Britannia’s God of War, London, 2004, p. 102.
R. Quarm in, M. Lincoln ed., Nelson and Napoleon, exhibition catalogue, London, 2005, p. 258, under no. 305.
R. Walker, 'The Nelson Portraits', in C. White, ed., The Nelson Companion, Stroud, 2005, pp. 38-9 and 56, note 9.
V.T. Sharman, Nelson's Hero, The Story of His 'Sea-Daddy' Captain William Locker, Barnsley, 2005, pp. 168 and 169.
A-M.E Hills, Nelson, A Medical Casebook, Stroud, 2006, p. 20.
S. Jenkins, Compton Verney Handbook, London, 2010, p. 90, under no. 49.
J. Sugden, Nelson: The Sword of Albion, London, 2012, p. 29.
C. Roach, ‘Domestic Display and Imperial Identity: A Visual Record of the Art Collections of Edward Hawke Locker’, Huntington Library Quarterly, LXXV, Autumn 2012, p. 422, note 32.
T. Michals, 'Invisible Amputation and Heroic Masculinity', Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, XLIV, 2015, p. 28.



Exhibited

(Possibly) London, The Royal Academy, 1800, no. 242, as 'Portrait of Lord Nelson, L.F. Abbott'.
New York, M. Knoedler and Co., Naval and Military Portraits, 18-30 April 1932, no. 1.



Engraved

R. Shipster, 1798.
V. Green, mezzotint, 1799.
Artist:Lemuel Francis Abbott (1760 - 1802)
Applied technique:Oil on canvas
Art style:Old Masters
Genre:Portrait
Place of origin:Northern Europe, Europe, United Kingdom
Auction house category:Paintings
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Lemuel Francis Abbott
Lemuel Francis Abbott
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