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A Rare York Georgian Artist: John Maurice Hauck

yorkgeorgians

by Allison Sharpe (YGS Communications Manager)


Thomas Beckwith (c.1731-1786)

by John Maurice Hauck (active c.1755-1775)

Inscribed, ‘Tho Beckwith / Painter in York / Aetat 30 1761 / Ino Maurice Hauck Pinxit Feb.19.’

Oil on canvas, 1761

YORAG : 984, Transferred from Yorkshire Museum, 1961

Image courtesy of York Museums Trust


Writing of John Maurice Hauck in 1971, the Art Historian John Ingamells noted, ‘nothing is

known about Hauck’. Indeed, even today, mention of the artist hangs by the slenderest of

biographical dictionary entries. However, the surname Hauck hails from German speaking

countries, so it is possible that the artist was an immigrant. He is noted as having worked in

London, York and Oxford.


Only three certain autograph paintings survive in UK public collections: two of the works are

held by York Art Gallery.


The 1761 portrait of York artist Thomas Beckwith is Hauck’s most ambitious work. It shows a

painting within a painting – Beckwith’s picturesque landscape in oils stands on an easel at

his shoulder – and the sitter is shown holding palette, mahl stick and brush, in the act of

colour mixing. Beckwith does not paint in an overall, but wears a gentlemanly dress, including a rather impractical but smart white shirt and long waistcoat. His naturally brown

hair is styled. Objects surrounding the artist tell of comfort and education: a rich green

curtain, ornately carved table, chair and the books.


Beckwith arrived in York to take up an artist’s profession in 1758, after training with a house

painter in Wakefield. However, perhaps Beckwith’s major legacy was his work as an

antiquary and genealogist. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, and the

Bodleian Library holds a catalogue of manuscripts he owned. Intriguingly Beckwith wrote

that Hauck’s (now lost) self-portrait was in his possession.


Robert Ledger

by John Maurice Hauck (active c.1755-1775)

Inscribed, ‘Robert Ledger, York / AETATIS 40 / John. Maurice H’

Oil on canvas, 1760

YORAG : 1161, Gift from the Friends of York Art Gallery, 1968

Image courtesy of York Museums Trust


Although dated a year earlier, in 1760, Hauck’s portrait of Robert Ledger is more

accomplished than that of Beckwith. Here the artist avoids harsh delineations of shapes and

achieves finer tonal shifts. Ledger holds a porte-crayon, a device made to carry a crayon

stick. The hand is given in richer detail than Beckwith’s (the left hand there is poorly drawn),

but the style is clearly related. Both pictures appear to have suffered with age, however,

with probable paint and varnish losses.


Ledger was also a fellow artist, specialising as an engraver (and linen draper), with a shop in

Stonegate; although scarcely any of his output is known. In 1763 his brother-in-law Robert

Holmes took over the engraving concern, while Ledger moved to London, where he had a

warehouse business near Southwark. He might also have collected art possibly being the

owner of two Richard Wilson landscapes (see Ingamells, II).


Gustavus Waltz (fl. 1732-1759)

by John Maurice Hauck (active c.1755-1775)

Oil on canvas, c.1755

5212, Allocated to the Foundling Museum under the Government Acceptance in Lieu Scheme

Image credit: Gerald Coke Handel Collection, The Foundling Museum



In this depiction of the bass opera singer Gustavus Waltz, Hauck has confused scale, as the

figure’s legs and feet out of proportion. However, the picture is small (40cm x 33cm), full of

detail and rather similar in conception to Beckwith’s portrait. Waltz is shown holding a cello

and bow. Again the heavy green curtain provides a foil, with a double manual harpsicord,

rather than a table, occupying the space behind the sitter. To Waltz’s left a table is crowded

with items for with drinking, smoking and music.


Having arrived in England from Germany in 1732, Waltz was to collaborate with the

composer George Frederic Handel (1685-1759), singing as both an operatic soloists and in

the chorus.


Given the evidence of these three portraits, Hauck certainly found opportunities within

artistic circles: perhaps, too, he enjoyed working with like-minded people.


A recently noticed Oxford Journal announcement of 25 November 1775 (see N. Jeffares,

2020) expands on Hauck’s work and life further,


‘MR HAUCK, Portrait-Painter, begs Leave to inform the Nobility &c. that he is removed from his late Lodgings in the Corn-Market, to Mr Davenport’s, Taylor, Opposite Trinity Colege, Oxford, where he will continue to take Likenesses in Black Lead, as usual, in which Mannerhe has given general Satisfaction to the University. He also paints in Oil…: Likewise in Crayons or any other mode of Drawing…his present residence in Town will be only to the

End of July next.’


Note of perseverance tinged with desperation can be sensed in this self-advertisement.

Hauck exhibited at the Society of Artists 1761-67, but this 1775 record appears to be the

last.


References: John Ingamells, ‘Art in 18 th -Century York’, Country Life, 1971, Part 1 pp. 1412-1414 & Part 2 pp. 1530-1532


Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, 2020 www.pastellists.com


The Foundling Museum describes The Gerald Coke Handel Collection as comprising over 15,000 items from the eighteenth century to the present, and is a major research resource for the study of Handel and his contemporaries.



YGS Events for Your Diary

Saturday 8 February

The West Front of Wentworth Woodhouse

by R. Blasson

Watercolour, pen and ink, 1790

52.566.6, Gift of Miss Dorothy S.F.M. Codman, 1952

Image courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art


Gill Hedley

‘The Ingenious Mr Flitcroft’

A lecture at The York Medical Society Rooms, 23 Stonegate, York,

YO1 8AW at 2.30pm-4pm


Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769), a leading Georgian architect in his own day, and a distinguished

Palladian, was later dismissed as a mere follower of Lord Burlington. However, recent

research has revealed more houses and churches designed by Flitcroft, and uncovered

decades long relationships with clients that include the Duke of Montagu, the Hoares of

Stourhead and the Royal Family. He largely worked in London and the West Country, but he

played a very significant role in the creation of the Palladian exterior and interiors of

Wentworth Woodhouse, near Doncaster, and yet again, new research has uncovered 100

drawings of the house and garden buildings.


Gill Hedley, author of a new biography of Flitcroft, will reveal some of this new research and

give an account of the private and public life of this unjustly ignored figure, including his

battles with Burlington and the Church hierarchy at St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey.



External Events to be Enjoyed

The Georgian Group

Tuesday 18 February

Sussex Country Houses

Online lecture by Sue Berry at 6.30pm


The influence of craftsmen on the design of country houses and on urban development

c.1720–1820: a case study of a market town and its surrounding country houses. Between

c.1720 and 1770, a considerable number of country houses were modernised, either by

rebuilding the entire property or making major changes. Craftsmen clearly played a

significant role in the styling of new work as well as in its construction.


The work seemed to dry up and so in the 1780s-1820 enterprising craftsmen became

important players in the layout, design and development of housing in what was a building

boom fuelled partly by wealth generated from providing services for soldiers involved in the

Napoleonic Wars.



Catch up Online Anytime

The National Gallery, London – YouTube Channel


Queen Charlotte

by Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830)

Oil on canvas, 1789

NG4257, Purchased, 1927

Image courtesy of National Gallery, London


Why did Queen Charlotte hate this portrait of herself?

Thomas Lawrence’s ‘Queen Charlotte’

A short film with Jon King, PhD (University of York)


Perhaps, given Her Majesty’s sometimes ‘challenging’ disposition, one should not be

surprised that this painting did not enter the Royal Collection, nor was the artist paid.


 



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