important work, the transference on to glass of Sir Joshua Reynolds's designs for the great window in New College Chapel, Oxford. This work was completed in 1787, and was much admired at the time, though both the design and the execution have since been severely censured. Another work of a similar description, executed in conjunction with his pupil, Forrest, was the filling in of the great east window of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with stained glass from a huge design by Benjamin West, representing the ‘Resurrection.’ This was also greatly admired, and a solemn service was held at its inauguration, at which Miss Burney was present (see Madame d'Arblay, Diary, 1 Jan. 1787). As at New College, both the design and Jervais's method of execution were wholly unsuited to the place, and the window has now been removed. Jervais on retiring from his profession lived at Windsor, where he died on 29 Aug. 1799. In the design of the ‘Nativity’ in the upper portion of the window at New College, Reynolds introduced his own portrait and that of Jervais as shepherds. The original drawing is now at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dallaway's Anecdotes of the Arts in England; Gent. Mag. lxix. (1799) 819; Leslie and Taylor's Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds.]
JARVAS or JARVIS, CHARLES (1675?–1739), portrait-painter and translator of ‘Don Quixote,’ was born in Ireland, probably at Dublin, about 1675, and received a good education. Coming to England, he lived with Sir Godfrey Kneller for a year, assisting in his studio and receiving instruction from him. He was patronised by Norris, keeper of the pictures to William III and Anne, who permitted him to copy at Hampton Court. Jervas there made small copies of the cartoons of Raphael; two of these he lent to Gerard Audran at Paris, who made engravings from them, and the whole set he sold to Dr. George Clarke [q. v.] of Oxford. The generosity of Dr. Clarke and other friends enabled Jervas to go to Rome, where he set himself to study drawing, a branch of his art which he had hitherto neglected. He studied the antique statues, and made copies from the works of famous painters, some copies by him after Carlo Maratti being especially noticed for their excellence. He returned to England about 1709. His facile style of portrait-painting, and the original taste and fancy of his costumes, secured him the patronage of fashionable society. He painted many ladies as shepherdesses or country girls (see Tatler, No. 4, April 1709), and his paintings are to be found in most ancestral collections of portraits at the present day. He eventually succeeded Sir Godfrey Kneller as principal painter to George I, and was continued in that post by George II. In 1728 he painted a portrait of the latter for the Guildhall, and also others of the queen and Prince William. He drew George II and Queen Caroline in profile for the medals engraved on their accession by John Croker [q. v.] at the mint.
Jervas was on terms of intimacy with the leading literary celebrities of the day—Pope, Addison, Swift, Arbuthnot, Warburton, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and others. Having married a widow with a large fortune, he was able to make his house, which he filled with works of art of many descriptions, one of the meeting-places for his literary friends. Pope took lessons in painting for about a year and a half from Jervas, and addressed an adulatory poem to him. This was probably composed in 1713, and was prefixed to Dryden's translation of Du Fresnoy's ‘Art of Painting,’ edited by Richard Graham [q. v.] in 1716, and revised by Jervas himself. Jervas painted Pope several times. One picture is at Caen Wood, Highgate, London, another at Lansdowne House, and a full-length, seated (engraved by J. H. Robinson), with Mary Blount (?), is in the National Portrait Gallery. Jervas drew the head of Homer engraved for Pope's translation of the ‘Iliad,’ and the intimacy with the poet was only severed by death (see Spence, Anecdotes, ed. Singer, pp. 23, 26, 237). Swift sat to Jervas for his portrait in 1710, perhaps either for that now in the National Portrait Gallery or the one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Journal to Stella, Letters ii. and iii. &c.) Jervas's portrait of Arbuthnot is at the College of Physicians, and one of Sir Isaac Newton at the Royal Society. Many stories are told of Jervas's vanity and the liberties which he took with his fashionable sitters. He fell, or affected to fall, in love with Elizabeth Churchill, countess of Bridgewater, whose portrait, painted by him, is in the collection of Earl Spencer. In 1716 and the following years he practised in his native country, Ireland, with great success. On falling into indifferent health, he made a second visit to Italy in 1738, ostensibly to purchase pictures for the royal family. He failed, however, to restore his health, and on his return to England lingered for some time until his death, which occurred at his house in Cleveland Court on 2 Nov. 1739.
Jervas's style was too dependent on the fashion of the moment to obtain lasting popularity. In the next generation Walpole described his pictures as ‘of a light flimsy kind
