Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1659 – 1743 London) Portrait of Peter Bodvel (c. 1690 – 1711)
A fine portrait of Peter Bodvel (c. 1690 – 1711) by Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1659 – 1743 London). The young sitter shown three-quarter length wearing a powdered wig, orange silk jacket with a red drape and a lace cravat whilst standing in a landscape. Oil on canvas in original carved gilt-wood frame.
Signed on the verso: Peter Bodvell of Bodven / Dahl Pinxt
PROVENANCE
The sitter, thence by descent to his brother; William Bodvel, thence by descent to his cousin; Margaret Lewis, Llys Dulas, Anglesey, Thence by descent to her cousin;
William Lewis, Llys Dulas, Anglesey, thence by descent to his niece;
Mary Lewis, Llys Dulas, thence by descent to her son;
William Hughes, 1st Baron Dinorben, thence by descent to his daughter;
The Hon. Gwyn Hughes, Lady Neave, Llys Dulas and Dagnam Park, thence by descent to her son; Sir Thomas Lewis Hughes Neave, 5th Bt., thence by descent to;
Sir Arundell Neave, 6th Bt., Pelham Place, Hampshire,
Thence by Descent
LITERATURE
John Steegman, A Survey of Portraits in Welsh Houses, Cardiff, 1957, vol. I, pp. 7 – 8, no. 6
EXHIBITED
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Pictures from Welsh Private Collections, 1951, no. 15
Peter Bodvel was born in 1690, a son of Lloyd Bodvel of Bodven and his wife Anne Davies, the heiress of Hugh Davies of Madryn. Peter was his parent’s eldest son and heir to the considerable estates of both his father and mother’s families. Despite this, his early death at the age of only 21 resulted in his brother William inheriting these estates and taking a seat in the House of Commons. Lord Egmont mentions William Bodvel in his list of ‘the most obnoxious men of an inferior degree’ in the House listing him along with Horace Walpole saying ‘these two (are) beyond all measure’.
The Bodvel family were influential amongst the Caernarvonshire elite with many of Peter’s ancestors being the Sheriff of the County. Peter attended Queen’s College Cambridge in 1707 and it was likely that he sat to his portrait by Dahl on leaving University, shortly before his death. This portrait would have been inherited by Peter’s brother William on the death of their father in 1731 after which it was passed to hsi cousin Margaret Lewis where it would have hung at her house, Llys Dulas at the latest from William’s death in 1759, until the family sold the property in the 1950s.
Llys Dulas was a modest property which included the land covering half of Parys Mountain. The Hughes family fortunes were changed immeasurably when it was discovered in the mid 18th century that the mountain contained Europe’s largest copper mine, making the Hughes family a vast fortune and eventually earning them a peerage. This work is typical of Michael Dahl’s portraiture of the early 18th century and has remained in the family since is it was painted.