The little that can be gleaned of Gervase Spencer’s early life tells an appealing story. His origins, including the date of his birth, are unknown and he started life as a gentleman’s servant. While in domestic service, Spencer discovered his artistic skill by copying a miniature belonging to his employer. Spencer took up the art and embarked on a professional career, possibly with the help of his master’s patronage. He became a successful and fashionable miniaturist, establishing a practice in London, and was himself painted by Reynolds. Spencer was the last miniaturist to be recorded by George Vertue (1684–1756): ‘Lately I was shewn some watercoloured limnings—womens heads—done by a young man, Mr Spencer, who a few years ago was in the capacity of a footman to Dr W.—and now professes limning with some success, which demonstrates a genius pracizing [sic] by degrees of himself,—and really is in a curious neat manner and masterly.’[1]

Spencer worked in both watercolour and enamel, and although it has been suggested that he was entirely self-taught, he likely had at least some tuition given the technical expertise required for working in enamel. He seems to have been active just after the portrait enamel had peaked in popularity, under the masterful Christian Friedrich Zincke (1683/84-1767), and prior to the zenith of the ivory miniature, which came later in the eighteenth century. Later in his career the Society of Artists formed, the first organisation for the public exhibition of work by contemporary artists, which helped to promote miniaturists of the next generation such as John Smart (1741-1811) and Richard Cosway (1742-1821). Spencer exhibited miniatures in its opening year in 1761 and again in 1762.

His best works are considered to be his female portraits, and the present enamel is an attractive example. The sitter is identified in an inscription on the counter enamel as 21-year-old Martha North; at marriageable age, it may be that this portrait was commissioned to commemorate a betrothal or marriage.

She wears a fashionable ensemble inspired by Rubens’s portrait of his second wife, Helena Fourment [Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon], which belonged to Sir Robert Walpole from 1743/5 - 1779. Costume historian Aileen Ribeiro describes the craze for historical costume, whether for masquerade balls or portraiture, as ‘enormous’ and ‘no costume was more popular from the 1730s to the 1770s than that worn by Helena Fourment’.[2] Here, Martha North wears an outfit almost exactly copying that of Rubens’s portrait.

[1] Vertue, Note books, 3.51, quoted in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – accessed online 27 August 2024

[2] Ribeiro, A., Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe 1715-1789, revised edition (Yale University press), 2002, pp.275-276