Sir William Charles Windeyer

Description

"One can look to formal, public portraits to locate somthing of that ‘masculine decision’, sternness eminence, and authoritative physical presence. Tom Roberts’s 1892 portrait of the recently-knighted judge – also gifted to the Gallery by William’s great-grandchildren in 2009 – for example, places him as the third in a trio of paintings referred to by Roberts as ‘Church, State and the Law’ (the other two subjects being Parkes and Cardinal Patrick Moran). But it is in the small portraits never intended for public view that his eminence is prefigured, and more specifically, where one can discern something of the strong sense of public duty that emerged from William’s private experience and circumstances, and the models set for him by his family.”

By Joanna Gilmour (National Portrait Gallery)

Identification

Artist

Tom Roberts

Medium

Oil on canvas (reproduced 2024)

Date

1893

Collection

Portraiture