British School
Circa 1620

Portrait of Thomas Morgan of Machen (B. 1568)
inscribed Aetatis Suae. 52/ Thos. Morgan of Machen in the upper left and dated Ano Dm. 1620 in the upper right

oil on panel, In a ÒTredegar HouseÓ pattern frame

42"×32" (106.7 cm×81.3 cm)

PROVENANCE:
By descent in the Morgan family of Tredegar House, Newport, Wales to Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar, until sold; Christie’s London, October 20, 1961, lot 7; Mr. and Mrs. Russell Speights, by whom given to the Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee, until 2005

LITERATURE J. Steegman, Portraits in Welsh Houses, II, Cardiff, 1962, p. 162, no. 8

EXHIBITED Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, Temporary Exhibition of Portraits, February - April 1934, no. 4 (lent by Viscount Tredegar)

The sitter in the present portrait is identified, by a near-contemporary inscription, as ’Thomas Morgan of Machen’ who was 52 years old in 1620. Thomas Morgan was probably a nephew of Thomas Morgan of Machen (c. 1534 - c. 1603) who married Elizabeth, daughter of Roger Bodenham. This branch of the Morgan Family who owned estates at Machen, near Caerphilly in South Wales, was closely related to the Morgans of Tredegar, near Newport. The present work remained with an important group of early Morgan family portraits at Tredegar House until they were dispersed at auction in 1961.

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