Lot 1496
NATHANIEL HONE, RA (1718-1784)
PORTRAIT OF THE REVEREND DR. WILLIAM SCLATER (1709-1778)
Seated, half length, wearing black clerical robes and holding spectacles, oil on canvas
74.5 x 62cm.
* The sitter was born at Loughton, Essex and studied at Winchester (where he was a Scholar) and at Oxford. He succeeded his father as Rector of Loughton in 1735, retaining the living until his death. A noted preacher, he was appointed Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London, William Beckford (1709-1770), and was selected by the Grocers' Company to become Rector of St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside, the primary London church after St Paul's Cathedral.
He married Susanna (nee Eyre) of Loughton who bore him a son who died in infancy. Sclater's own death was bizarre and doubly ironic in the light of his pastoral role for the Grocers' Company: during the afternoon of February 11th 1778, he was killed instantly when a sack of caraway seeds slipped from a sling as it being craned into a warehouse on St Mary Hill (it is said that no member of the family has eaten seed cake since). Sclater was buried alongside his wife in Loughton and his estate passed to his niece, Elizabeth. The picture has passed by descent in the family and was formerly owned by John Limbrey Robert Sclater-Booth, 3rd Baron Basing (1890-1969)
Engraved: in mezzotint by John Raphael Smith, 1777
