Arthur Pond (1701 – 1758) – IMS Photography

Elizabeth Blackett (1735-1752)

Ian Malpass-Scott — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 18:22:39 +0000

Pastel on paper, Elizabeth Blackett (1735-1752), Arthur Pond (London 1701 – Rome 1758). Half-length portrait, facing in white dress with blue bows. Reattributed by Neil Jeffares.

Provenance: Gift from Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan 3rd Bt

Marks & inscriptions: Back of canvas: Henry Calverley, Great grandfather of Sir Walter Blackett Back of frame: G. E. (illegible), Picture Framer & restorer, 18, PRINCESS STREET. (OFF SAVILLE ROW) NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,1, DIAL 21665

Text from National Trust website

Object description
Type: Drawing
Location: Wallington Hall, Northumberland
Material: Pastel on paper
Artist: Arthur Pond (1701 – 1758)
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 19 October 2025
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/26s
ISO: 800
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Rhoda Apreece, Mrs Francis Blake Delaval

Ian Malpass-Scott — Sun, 21 May 2023 19:00:14 +0000

Daughter of Robert Apreece and Sarah Hussey, she married Captain Francis Blake Delaval (1692 – 1752) at St. Anne’s church, Westminster, in August 1724. The Husseys lived at Doddington, to which she was heir, a hall built by Thomas Tailor, Registrar to the Bishop of Lincoln in 1600 and designed by Robert Smythson. The Hall passed to the Hussey family by marriage, when the Tailor line died out. The Husseys were penalised by Cromwell for their Royalist support, and were considerably impoverished, such that the house was neglected until 1760, when Sir John Delaval restored it. Rhoda inherited the house from Sir Thomas Hussey of Doddington, her maternal grandfather, in 1749. She and Sir Francis did not move into Delaval Hall, which had not yet been completed by Sir George, until 1728. Accommodating their twelve children (eight sons and four daughters) into a house designed for a bachelor Admiral, was difficult, and some of them were sent to stay with relatives in other Delaval houses at Dissington and Ford. The unruly brood became unknown as the ‘Gay Delavals’, renowned for their exuberant lifestyle and theatrical productions. Her costume is an idiosyncratic version – combined with lacing – of that in Rubens’s portrait of Helene Fourment (Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon; then in Sir Robert Walpole’s collection), which inspired dozens of imitations in the mid-C18th, after it was first adopted by John Vanderbank around 1730. It is particularly common in the works of painters, such as Hudson, who employed Van Aken as a drapery painter – but in none of their paintings does the costume resemble this. Anthony Mould prefers an attribution to Hudson (he also noted that the right-hand side was flattened with some losses). Alastair Laing felt the hand was crisper than Hudson, and too stylised for Pond, before realizing that the treatment of the eyes, in particular, betray Seeman’s hand. (Amanda Bradley)

Provenance: accepted in lieu of tax by H.M.Treasury and transferred to the National Trust in 2009

Marks & Inscriptions: Bottom centre: Incription bottom centre: “Rhoda Apreece, wife of Francis blake Delaval esq”

Text from National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Seaton Delaval Hall, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: attributed to Enoch Seeman the younger (c.1694 – 1744), Arthur Pond (1701 – 1758), Thomas Hudson (1701 – 1779)
Date: circa 1730

Image Details
Date: 21 May 2023
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 640
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

View of South (Park) Front of Seaton Delaval Hall

Ian Malpass-Scott — Sun, 21 May 2023 16:04:32 +0000

Oil painting on canvas, View of South (park) Front of Seaton Delaval Hall, Arthur Pond (London 1701 – Rome 1758), 1743. Architectural view of south front of Seaton Delaval Hall. One of a pair. Pond was primarily a portraitist, who taught the family to paint. His account book for 8 May 1745 records ‘Francis Blake Delaval Esq two views of Seaton £52 10s’.; see Louise Lippincott, ‘Arthur Pond’s Journal of Receipts and Expenses, 1734-1750’, The Fifty-fourth Volume of the Walpole Society: 1988 [1991], p.269. He does not appear to have painted such views for anybody else.

Provenance: accepted in lieu of tax by H.M.Treasury and transferred to the National Trust in 2009

Text from National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Seaton Delaval Hall, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Arthur Pond (1701 – 1758)
Date: 1745

Image Details
Date: 21 May 2023
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
ISO: 640
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

View of North Front (entrance) of Seaton Delaval Hall

Ian Malpass-Scott — Sun, 21 May 2023 16:03:06 +0000

Oil painting on canvas, View of North Front of Seaton Delaval Hall by Arthur Pond (London 1701 – Rome 1758), 1743. An architectural view of the north (entrance) front of Seaton Delaval Hall. One of a pair of views. Pond was primarily a portraitist, who taught the family to paint. His account book for 8 May 1745 records ‘Francis Blake Delaval Esq two views of Seaton £52 10s’.; see Louise Lippincott, ‘Arthur Pond’s Journal of Receipts and Expenses, 1734-1750’, The Fifty-fourth Volume of the Walpole Society: 1988 [1991], p.269. He does not appear to have painted such views for anybody else.

Provenance: accepted in lieu of tax by H.M.Treasury and transferred to the National Trust in 2009

Marks & Inscriptions: Inscribed bottom left: North Front Delaval Hall

Text from National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Seaton Delaval Hall, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Arthur Pond (1701 – 1758)
Date: 1745

Rhoda Delaval, Lady Astley

Ian Malpass-Scott — Sun, 21 May 2023 15:43:48 +0000

Eldest daughter of Captain Francis Blake Delaval (1692 – 1752) and Rhoda Apreece (d.1759), daughter of Robert Apreece and Sarah Hussey. Her marriage in 1751 to Edward Astley, later 4th Bt. (1729 – 1802) of Melton Constable, ultimately brought Seaton Delaval into the Astley family. Rhoda died in childbirth, having borne him three sons and a daughter. On her death, her husband went to live with his children at Melton Constable. Their son, Jacob (1756 – 1817) inherited the Delaval estates in 1814. She was a talented artist, taught by Pond, who had been brought to Seaton Delaval by her father. Pond’s journal records lessons in painting given to ‘Miss Delaval’ [i.e. the eldest daughter, Rhoda] a month at a time, intermittently between February 1744 and June 1750, at 4 guineas (£4.4s.) a month. He also obtained a ‘Layman’ for her from a joiner, Morris, in June 1750, for £3.8s. (Lippincott, art.cit., passim). This would appear to have been the picture for which Pond charged 12 guineas (£12.12s.) in June 1750 (cf. Louise Lippincott, ‘Arthur Pond’s Journal of Receipts and Expenses, 1734-1750’, The Fifty-fourth Volume of the Walpole Society: 1988, [1991], p.314. Rhoda left various letters dating to the years after her marriage, which provide insight into C18th society life in Northumberland (see M.Green, The Delavals. A Family History, Newcastle, p.44 ff.). (Amanda Bradley)

Provenance: accepted in lieu of tax by H.M.Treasury and transferred to the National Trust in 2009

Marks & Inscriptions: Top: formerly inscribed with the identity of the sitter (in flowing white script, painted out): Rhoda Delaval wife of / [crossed out: William …] Edward Astley Frame tablet: RHODA, daughter of F.B. Delaval / and first wife of / Sir Edward Astley 4th Bart. / A.POND.

Text from National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Seaton Delaval Hall, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Arthur Pond (1701 – 1758)
Date: circa 1750