RKD STUDIES

active c. 1660–died in London in 1702¹
English frame-maker, painter, restorer and dealer in London

Parry Walton was a pupil of the portrait painter Robert Walker (1599–1658), and paid his dues to the Painter-Stainers Company in 1674. He is also mentioned as an assistant of Peter Lely (1618–80). In 1679 he was appointed Surveyor and Keeper of the King’s Pictures. Walton continued his work as a restorer under William, Prince of Orange and King of England (1650–1702) and Mary Stuart II (1662–94): he worked on pictures by Rubens, Mantegna, Titian and Van Dyck. After Sir Peter Lely’s death in 1680 Walton valued the paintings in his estate, and in 1682 he was involved in the important sale of Lely’s collection in three ways: as appraiser, as varnisher, and as purchaser of four pictures. He seems to have been very active in the 1680s and 1690s as a dealer and auctioneer.

LITERATURE
Buckeridge 1706, p. 435 (Parrey Walton); Waterhouse 1988; Dethloff 1996b, p. 124; RKD, no. 82788: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/82788 (Feb. 25, 2017); http://www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/directory-of-british-picture-restorers/british-picture-restorers-1600-1950-w.php (May 20, 2020).

canvas, 63.9 x 55.2 cm

PROVENANCE
Cartwright Bequest, 1686 (no. 122; £2, ‘A picture of a glass of Clarit, a Lofe of Bread an oring 2 apprecoks a Romer of Renish wine on a tabell couered with a green clouth in a gilt frame, 3 quarters clouth by m walton’; ‘walton’ repeated in the margin in the same hand).

REFERENCES
(possibly) Brown Ledger, 28 November 1814: ‘Cleaning Stipling &c an upright P.r on Panel Still life - 12s -’; Sparkes & Carver 1890, p. 46, no. 124 (P. Walton); Richter & Sparkes 1892 and 1905, p. 120, no. 429; Cook 1914, p. 241; Cook 1926, p. 224; Gerson 1942/1983, p. 409;² Cat. 1953, p. 42;
Murray 1980a, p. 302; Waterhouse 1988, pp. 290–91, fig. (P. Walton); Beresford 1998, p. 254 (P. Walton, ‘seems to be the artist’s only known surviving work as a painter’); Ingamells 2008, p. 86 (P. Walton);³
Ebert 2009, pp. 133–9, figs 84–5 (copy after an unknown painting by S. Luttichuys?);⁴ RKD no. 284096: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/284096 (April 30, 2017).

EXHIBITIONS
London 1987–8, pp. 24, 78–9, no. 76 (R. Jeffree: P. Walton); London 2012a, p. 32 (fig.).

TECHNICAL NOTES
Lined; some background losses; a surface scratch through the upright glass; Possibly 1814, Robert Brown, see under References; 1953, Dr Hell.

RELATED WORKS
1) Simon Luttichuys, Still Life with Rummer, Bread and Roses, canvas, 44.5 x 35 cm. Private collection, UK.⁵
2) Simon Luttichuys, Still Life with Rummer, Goblet, a Quarter Lemon and a Bun, canvas, 31 x 27 cm. Present whereabouts unknown.⁶
3) Simon Luttichuys, Still Life with Rummer, Glass Cup, Bun, Fruit and Roses, monogrammed S.Lfc., canvas, 42 x 40 cm. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, A 576 [1].⁷
4) Simon Luttichuys, Still Life with Rummer, Glass Cup, Bun, Fruit and Roses, monogrammed S.L.fc., canvas, 50 x 39.5 cm. Private collection, Munich.⁸
5) Simon Luttichuys, Still Life with Glass Cup, Tankard, Pewter Platter, Cherries and Bun, monogrammed S.L. fc, canvas, 41 x 35 cm. Private collection, Germany.⁹
6) Simon Luttichuys, Still Life with Rummer on a Pewter Platter, Silver Cup and Roses, signed and dated S. L. 1649, canvas, 60.5 x 51.8 cm. Private collection, The Netherlands.¹⁰

The attribution to Parry Walton is based solely on the text in the Cartwright inventory. No other paintings by him are known. The style and the quality of this picture, however (even in its present rubbed state), are very close to the work of Simon Luttichuys (1610–61) . Ebert mentions five examples of paintings by Luttichuys that look very much like it (Related works, nos 1–5) [1].¹¹ We can add a sixth example, not least because its measurements are the closest to DPG429 (Related works, no. 6). It is possible that Cartwright, the writer of his own inventory, made a mistake, and wrote the name of Parry Walton in the entry of the wrong still life (see under DPG355). Or is it possible that Walton, who was a picture restorer by profession, painted DPG429? The picture seems to be have been made by a professional. According to Gerson it looks very Dutch, not British.¹²

The objects, arranged on a table hung with a cloth, are set in an unidentified space. The selection roughly follows the description by Hoogstraten in 1678 of one of the types of still life painting: a ‘beautiful peach and apricot, or melon and lemon, and a clear wine rummer on a laden table’.¹³

DPG429
possibly Parry Walton after Simon Luttichuys
Still Life, before 1686
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG429

1
Simon Luttichuys
Still Life with Rummer, Glass Cup, Bun, Fruit and Roses
Oxford (England), Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, inv./cat.nr. A 576

oak panel, 73.9 x 52.7 cm
‘207’ in black ink and on a label on the verso

PROVENANCE
?Cartwright Bequest, 1686, no. 207.¹⁴

REFERENCES
Sparkes & Carver 1890, p. 47, no. 125; Richter & Sparkes 1892 and 1905, p. 99, no. 355 (no attribution); Cook 1914, p. 212 (Artist unknown); Cook 1926, p. 197; Cat. 1953, p. 47; Murray 1980a, p. 301 (Unknown); Beresford 1998, p. 306 (Unknown, quite possibly British); not in Ingamells 2008; Jonker & Bergvelt 2016, p. 313 (British or Dutch School (Parry Walton?));¹⁵ RKD, no. 282057: https://rkd.nl/explore/images/282057 (Feb. 25, 2017).

TECHNICAL NOTES
Oak panel, bevelled on all sides on the back. Appearance is generally poor, with uneven blanching across the surface. The paint surface has numerous drying cracks and unrestored paint losses, revealing the wooden support in places.

There are no signs of a personal style that could indicate a particular artist. The painting is not listed in the Cartwright inventory, but the pages with accession numbers 186–209 are missing, and this is marked ‘207’.¹⁶ Valentina Ravaglia suggested in conversation that this, rather than DPG429 (q.v.), might be the work painted by Walton. That would be more in line with the meager quality to be expected from an amateur artist. Peter Murray too wondered whether DPG355 might have been painted by Parry Walton.¹⁷ Walton’s name is, however, attached in the Cartwright inventory to DPG429. One or the other would be the only painting by the artist.

A still life such as this is called a banketje (little banquet) in Dutch inventories. The pewter platter and the pewter mounts on the stoneware beer tankard give a sense of modest luxury. The pickled herring is a standard element in still lifes of the first half of the 17th century.¹⁸

DPG355
possibly Parry Walton
Still life
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG355