Exchange Loan for Wright of Derby in Liverpool (Fitchburg Art Museum, 2007-11-12 - 2008-09-15)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)Pleasures and Pastimes (Yale Center for British Art, 1990-02-21 - 1990-04-29)Arthur Devis (National Portrait Gallery, 1983-10-01 - 1983-11-12)Arthur Devis (Harris Museum and Art Gallery, 1983-11-25 - 1984-01-29)The Conversation Piece - Arthur Devis & His Contemporaries (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-10-01 - 1980-11-30)
Publications:
Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977-1986 : Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1986, pp. 9, 12,13, no. 12, fig. 5, N590.2 .A7 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Geoffrey W. Beard, The compleat gentleman, five centuries of aristocratic life , Rizzoli, New York, 1992, p. 29, HT653 G7 B415 1992 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 86-87, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Albert M. Craig, The heritage of world civilizations, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2000, p. 623, CB69 H45X 2000 + (SML)Ellen G. D'Oench, Arthur Devis (1712-1787): master of the Georgian conversation piece, , University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982, pp. 52, 246, no. 37, fg. 100, NJ18 D5151 D635 1979A (YCBA)Ellen G. D'Oench, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis & his contemporaries, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 12, 46-47, 92, cat. no. 8, AD List no. 246, pl.. 8, NJ18 D5151 D64 OVERSIZEElisabeth Fairman, Pleasures and pastimes, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 1990, p. 12, no. 59, DA485 F25 1990 (YCBA)Andrew Graham-Dixon, A history of British art, BBC, London, UK, 1996, p. 85, No. 32, N6761 G72 1996 (YCBA)Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 46, 47, no. 11, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)Sarah Morris, A teacher's guide to using portraits, English Heritage, London, UK, 1989, p. 29, no. 47, N7625.5 M67 1989 (YCBA)R. Parkinson, Arthur Devis and His Contemporaries: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn: Exhibit, Burlington Magazine, v. 123, no. 934, January 1981, p. 61, N1 B87 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)R. Parkinson, Contemporaries at the Yale Center for British Art, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 123, No. 934, January 1981, , N1 B87+ YCBAPaul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 3, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Polite society by Arthur Devis, 1712-1787, portraits of the English country gentleman and his family : catalogue of the exhibition, The Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancs., October 1st-November 12th, 1983, National Portrait Gallery, London, November 25th, 1983-January 29th, 1984 , Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston (Lancashire), 1983, pp. 44, 80, no. 12, NJ18 D5151 S37 (YCBA)Duncan Robinson, Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977 - 1986, , Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, October 1986, pp. 9, 12, 13, no. 12, fig. 5, N1 .B87 128:3 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Charles Saumarez Smith, Eighteenth-century decoration: design and the domestic interior in England, , Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1993, p. 126, 168, 169, no. 155, NK2043 A1 S28 1993 (YCBA)Deborah Anne Shafer, Fashioning an Ideal of Intimacy: British Family 1730-1790 [Boston University PhD Dissertation], Ann Arbor, 2004, p. xi, 86, Cat no. 33, Available online at ProQuest Dissertations & Theses GlobalRoy C. Strong, The British portrait, 1660-1960, Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1991, pp. 43, 46, 72, col. pl. 6 ,pl. 67, ND1314 B743 1991 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
This conversation piece is remarkable for the elaborate architecture and decoration of the interior, a succession of three splendid rooms with (left to right) a seventeenth-century ancestral portrait mounted as an overmantel, Ionic pilasters, rich stucco ornament, a frescoed ceiling in the middle room, small paintings hung high in oval recesses, a marine painting overdoor flanked by marble busts, and a Palladian window overlooking the park beyond. Presumably Devis extracted some or all of these details from an architectural pattern book. The group of children consists of a little boy riding a gentleman's cane; the elder daughter with her sewing basket; the younger daughter, who is building a house of cards; and the eldest son and heir, who holds onto the tail of the paper kite that is propped in the corner of the room. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005