File:RadcliffeFamily OfWarleigh ByThomasHudson.jpg

English: Oil painting by Thomas Hudson (1701-79) titled The Radcliffe family: Walter Radcliffe of Warleigh, Devon, his wife Admonition and their family, property of the Berger Collection (See[1]) founded by the mutual funds manager William Merriam Bart Berger (d.1999) of Denver, Colorado, USA. Provenance: By descent in the Radcliffe family until sold under the terms of the Radcliffe Chattels Settlement, Sotheby's, London, November 13, 1996, lot 52[2]. It measures 126 x 174 in and is one of Hudson's largest works. On display in Denver Art Museum, Colorado, USA, on loan from the Berger Collection, ref: TL-17968

It depicts Walter I Radcliffe (1693-1752) of Warleigh in the parish of Tamerton Foliot, Devon, with his wife Admonition Bastard (born 1701) (4th daughter of William Bastard (1667-1704) of Gerston, East Alvington, Devon), and their nine children.

Catalogue entry, Berger Collection:

"The baby boy perched upon his mother's knee is William, who was born around a year before the painting was produced. He was killed in action at the battle of Warburg, Westphalia, in 1760. Walter, who holds the baby's hand, inherited the family estate as the eldest surviving son when his father died in 1752. He was to be the archetypal eighteenth-century gentleman, making the Grand Tour of Europe, maintaining a house in London, and sitting twice to Sir Joshua Reynolds; he died unmarried in 1803. Jasper, the little drummer boy wearing a bright blue suit, died when he was still a schoolboy; Joanna, to his left, married a local man. The group on the left of the picture, the two sisters, Mary and Jane, hugging each other at the back, also both married respectable local men. In front of them, holding the tambourine and playing with the dog, is the lively young Admonition, who died of smallpox as a child; her brother John, who has his hand on her shoulder, inherited the family estate upon Walter's death in 1803. Like his elder brother, he died unmarried. Nearest the father, Anne Grace, the eldest daughter, remained a spinster and lived her whole life at Warleigh. It is on the whole a rather sad history for such and exuberant and optimistic-looking family".(See[3])