The artist, Diana Hill née Deitz 1760 – 1844

Diana was an artist, who, if I’m honest, I had not come across until recently, but when I saw this portrait by Diana, of an unknown girl and simply had to know more about Diana’s life. Many of her portraits are in private collections so are difficult to view, but I have managed to find a few to share.

Unknown Girl by Diana Hill. Courtesy of V&A

Who was Diana? It’s difficult to establish exactly when Diana was born, but it was around 1760, to parents George Dietz, a jeweller and his wife, Elizabeth.

The couple had 4 known children, Diana who I think was the eldest, then George, named for his father, who was born 1761, but as there are no further sightings of him, it’s fairly safe to say he died in infancy. The couple went on to have a further 2 daughters, Amelia (1763-1837) and Ann Sophia (1764-1819).

Diana and Amelia were trained as artists, with Diana winning five guineas and the Greater Silver Pallet for her painting of flowers in 1775, and another entry confirmed her as being a pupil of a Mr Pars, who I have not been able to trace.

Premiums offered by the Society, instituted at London, for the encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce 1776

I have read that she also studied under the famous artist, Jeremiah Meyer, but to date, I have found nothing to substantiate this.

In March 1780, according to London Lives, the family home at 236 Oxford Street was robbed and here we have a handwritten letter by Diana submitted to the court:

A little under a year later, on 1 February 1781, Diana made her first marriage, to Haydock Hill at St Marylebone.

London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P89/MRY1/169

Interestingly one of the witnesses was  a German merchant, Theophilus Christian Blanchenhagen (c1736-1814) whose name we will come across later.

Merchant Theophilus Blanckenhagen by Diana Hill 1785

The couple began their married life at 41 Broad Street, Golden Square, London, but their marriage was to be short lived. However, they did produce three children – Elizabeth (1781-1868), Haydock James (182-1834) and Catherine who was born December 1783, but who sadly died aged just one year, eleven weeks and was buried on 28 January 1785.

Tragedy would strike Diana again, just 4 months later, when her husband, Haydock died. Haydock was buried on 11 May 1785, at St Marylebone church.

Burial of Haydock Hill 11 May 1785 at St Marylebone. London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P89/MRY1/008

Finding herself a widow, in her mid-twenties, with two very young children to raise alone, she made the decision, presumably with help from family and friends to continue her artwork, but not in England where she would have had her father and siblings, plus in-laws around her for support – instead she set sail for India.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis by Diana Hill. Mount Vernon Museum

On 21 September 1785, Diana and her two surviving children made the long and arduous crossing to India, having been granted permission by the Court of Directors to travel there as a portrait painter. Her mother in law, Elizabeth Hill, of Newman Street, London and Theophilus Blanchenhagen, a very affluent merchant, of Broad Street, (which, coincidentally was where Diana and her children also lived), acted as her sponsors.

She arrived in Calcutta sometime in 1786 and began painting portraits of Europeans, much to the irritation of a jealous painter, Ozias Humphrey, who was already working in India.

Sir Charles Cockerell Bt. (1755-1837), wearing brown coat, white waistcoat, frilled chemise and cravat, his hair powdered. Courtesy of Bonhams.

Humphrey described Diana as a

‘pretty widow with to children’. Her popularity alarmed him and said that he would ‘rather have all the male painters in England landed in Bengal than this single woman’.

Thomas Harriott. V&A

Not only did Diana continue with her painting in India, but also found herself a new husband and on 15 November 1788 she married Lieutenant Thomas Harriott (1753-1817) of the First Native Infantry, whose portrait we see above.

Parish register transcripts from the Presidency of Bengal, : 1713-1948. N-1-4. folio 56

On the 13 October 1789, the couple were to baptise their first child, a daughter, named Diana Maria, as to whether this child survived infancy is not known, but the following year saw the birth of their first son together, Thomas George (1790-1857).

In February of 1792, her sister, Ann Sophia, known to all as Sophia, arrived to join her sister in India, again, Mrs Hill was to be her sponsor, as she had done for Diana. Sophia arrived around the time that Diana gave birth to their next child, William Henry (1792-1839). William was followed two years later by their final child,  another daughter, Clara Amelia (1794-1843). Of this brood of children, 4 survived into adulthood. In February 1806, Thomas resigned his commission and the family returned to England, taking up residence at West Hall, Mortlake. By this time Diana had given up painting, but her sister, Amelia was still working as an artist and presumably living with her father.

1816 her father, George died. In his will written in 1810, his occupation as that of jeweller was confirmed.

Bank Of England Wills Extracts 1717-1845

He left legacies for his 3 daughters – Diana, Amelia and Ann Sophia and his grandchildren. At probate his estate was valued at about £1500 (approx. £120k today). His address was give at Great Pultney Street, formerly of Vauxhall Terrace, Lambeth, but he was buried on 26 July 1816, at St Mary’s Lambeth, named George Erchart Dietz.

London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P85/MRY1/487

In April of the following year, Diana’s beloved husband, Thomas died and was buried at St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake. In his will he bequeathed his estate to Diana and their children. On 2 September 1819, Diana’s sister, Ann Sophia died, leaving just the two siblings.

The 1841 census shows Diana living at Sussex Place, London, she is noted to be of independent means. Her companion at that time was Sibella Harriott née Hunter, her daughter in law, the wife of Thomas George Harriott.

Class: HO107; Piece: 677; Book: 16; Civil Parish: St Marylebone; County: Middlesex; Enumeration District: 14; Folio: 20; Page: 33; Line: 18; GSU roll: 438793

Diana, it is to be assumed, lived a quiet later life, with her sister, Amelia close by, until her death in 1837. Diana, however, would outlive them all, dying on 10 February 1844.

London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: Dw/T/7006/36

She was buried beside her husband at St Mary’s Mortlake, at the ripe old age of 84, but at least we still have her art to remember her by. Diana also left a will, the bulk of which was left to her son, Thomas George, with bequests made to all her grandchildren.

Sources

George Dietz Probate – Bank of England Wills Extracts 1717-1845

Burial of George Dietz – London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P85/MRY1/487

Archer, Mildred. Patna Painting

Williamson, George Charles. Life and Works of Ozias Humphrey

Foskett, Daphne. Collecting Miniatures

Will of Diana Harriott

Will of George Dietz

Will of Thomas Harriott

Will of Amelia Mary Dietz

Portrait Miniature on Ivorine of the Prominent Merchant Theophilus Blanckenhagen by Diana Hill (nee Dietz) 1760-1844. Courtesy of Antiques.co.uk

How the portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott came to be in The Frick Collection

The information about the painting shown on the Frick Collection website provides a few clues about the provenance of the portrait, but we came across more which fills in some of the gaps.

Grace Dalrymple Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough. The Frick, New York.

The portraits life began its life when Grace Dalrymple Elliott and Mary Robinson aka Perdita, mistress to the Prince of Wales, sat at the same time to have their portraits painted by Thomas Gainsborough. The portrait of Grace had, according to the late British art historian Sir Oliver Millar, been commissioned by the Prince of Wales (later King George IV) for the sum of £31 10 shillings.

Mrs Mary Robinson (Perdita) by Thomas Gainsborough, 1781; The Wallace Collection

After completion, the portrait of Grace vanished for some considerable time and there is no further reference to it prior to Grace’s death in 1823, nor any mention of it being in the possession of either the Prince of Wales or Grace’s lover, the 1^st Marquess of Cholmondeley. Research tells us, however, that it was included in several exhibitions including The British Institution 1860; International Exhibition 1862; Gainsborough Exhibition at Grosvenor Gallery 1884 and in 1894 at the Grafton Gallery.

At this time, it appeared in a brochure by Charles Fairfax Murray who catalogued all the paintings belonging to his Grace Duke of Portland, so we can only assume that it was loaned to the Grafton Gallery by the duke. We still have no idea exactly how it entered into his possession although Murray stated that:

The fine Gainsborough, Mrs Elliott, was no doubt, also purchased by the last Duke, possibly in France as the lady died at Ville D’Avray and the picture may have belonged to her at her death.

If that information is correct then the painting would appear to have been purchased by the 6th Duke of Portland, William Cavendish-Bentinck, but the most likely explanation is that it was inherited somehow by the family at the time of Grace’s death as the family also own other paintings connected to Grace.

William John Cavendish Bentinck (1857-1943), 6th Duke of Portland by Reginald Grenville Eves; The Bowes Museum

The book Thomas Gainsborough by Arthur B Chamberlain published in 1906 contains a photograph of Mrs Elliott’s portrait, which was included with the permission of the Duke of Portland.

In 1909 a photograph of the portrait also appeared in The Masterpieces of Gainsborough, again, with the permission of the Duke of Portland, so we know that the portrait had remained under the ownership of the Portland estate for some considerable time.

It was then exhibited in February 1909, at the New Gallery, London as part of an exhibition entitled ‘Fair Women’. Then again in October 1927 in Ipswich as part of a celebration of the bicentenary of Gainsborough.

A photograph of the portrait of Grace in the book, ‘Thomas Gainsborough’ by Arthur B Chamberlain.

It was at the end of 1927 that the fun and games began when we came across letters and cables at the Getty Research Institute regarding the sale of the ‘head and shoulders’ portrait of Grace between Joseph Duveen & the Portland Estate, and they make for fascinating reading. Duveen being one of the most influential art dealers at that time.

Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen, 1920s. Library of Congress Digital Images.

It seems that Duveen approached the Duke of Portland and trustees wishing to purchase the portrait and he had a figure in mind in the region of £25,000 to £30,000 maximum that he was willing to pay for it.

The Duke, on the other hand, believed it to worth in excess of £50,000. Duveen described this price as ‘ridiculous’.

On the 6th December 1927 Duveen thought that an offer of around £40,000 might be closer to the mark to secure the painting, but as he was a skilled negotiator and felt that the Duke and the trustees needed to come down much closer to £30,000 before he would be interested in buying it.

Duveen said he’d seen the portrait at the Ipswich Exhibition and that it was a very beautiful and saleable one, but in spite of this, he was adamant that the £50,000 price was far too high.

This is where the really cryptic cable exchanges began on 17th December 1927 between Duveen and Herbert Silva White (fine art dealer, 175, Piccadilly, London) – instead of referring to the picture by name Duveen referred to it as the ‘landport topaz’.  Duveen continued to confirm that the price too high for them and that it would be too high for other dealers and that

the sooner the Duke of Portland realized that the better.

Less than a week later White approached the Portland lawyers who said £40,000 was not enough for the painting and that Portland had been approached by others but was not keen to sell. A few days later White contacted Duveen saying that if the offer was below £40,000 the Duke would ‘be mad and refuse to sell’.

The Duke and the trustees dug their heels in at this point and refused to allow either White or Duveen access to view the portrait as they had requested, saying that they had seen it at the exhibition and that should be enough for them! The saga continued with the duke and trustees becoming more and more annoyed.

On the 30th January 1928 in a letter from White to Duveen he stated that the duke would not allow them to see the painting again under any circumstances, the duke understood how good the painting was and how much the public enjoyed seeing it at the exhibition and that it would stay on his wall until it was purchased! Nor would he allow a photograph of it to be taken. He said that a representation existed in the Ipswich catalogue and that really should be good enough for them. A minimum payment required of £40,000 was requested or the matter would be closed.

White said to Duveen that they were now several months on and no further forward in negotiations. White said that the duke had another extremely interested party and so it was time they made their decision. So, the battle continued.

One month later Duveen described the portrait as ‘marvellous‘, and that it would be a good purchase at between £25,000 & £28,000 but added that

we’re dealing with very difficult people and under 30k would be useless.

So White was instructed to offer £32,000. The Duke and trustees were still sticking to their guns –  £40,000, so it was agreed that White should back off for now. A further two months passed.

These people will not budge from £40k and still refuse to let us see the picture.

Duveen then instructed White to insist that he must be allowed to see the portrait if he was expected to pay £40,000 for it. White decided that the best approach would be to arrange for Duveen to see the picture when Portland’s were not in residence and eventually, he managed to arrange a visit to Welbeck without the permission of the duke, who he knew was away, but he hadn’t bargained for the Duchess being there.

He described Welbeck as being

more difficult to get into than Buckingham Palace

but said that he’d learnt a few things about how to get in at a later date! Cryptic messages continued until 23^rd August 1929 when a letter from Duveen refers to someone named Colnaghi who had offered £45,000 for the painting. Duveen still wanted to actually see the picture and apparently, Colnaghi might be able to arrange this.

On the 24th October 1929, the Duke stated that if the price was high enough he would sell, then a week later he had a change of mind and wouldn’t sell at any price as his financial situation had changed and he no longer needed to sell, but if he were to sell it would be for somewhere in excess of £50k.

Somehow Duveen eventually managed to view it; agreed it was lovely, but the agreement was that he could see that portrait and nothing else whilst there. On the 5^th July 1930, a photograph of the portrait was sent to Duveen by the Duke of Portland. Less than a week later Duveen confirmed that he had purchased the portrait, but annoyingly, no mention as to how much had finally been settled on, which after so much hassle is immensely annoying.

Some six years later on the 19th February 1936, the Sassoon Exhibition opened; Mrs Elliot looked ‘marvellous‘ (Sir Phillip Sassoon, 45 Park Lane, London).

7 April 1936 – confirming a letter rec’d thanking them for loaning the Gainsborough to the Sassoon Exhibition, from Mrs Gubbay.

 

Richard Paul Jodrell by Thomas Gainsborough. Frick Collection

On 23 June 1938:

can you offer Oakes two Gainsborough portraits –  Mrs Elliot, Mister Richard Paul Jodrell, MP?

This final telegram could possibly relate to Roscoe & Margaret Oakes, they had a connection to the Frick and were philanthropists and art collectors. On 28 June 1938, a shipment containing both paintings was sent on SS Aquitania.

So finally, we had the explanation as to how Grace found her way into Frick Collection, along with the portrait of Richard Paul Jodrell. After all of this ‘cloak and dagger’ saga, Joseph Duveen was to die just a year later.

You can discover more about Grace’s fascinating life, her family and her lovers in An Infamous Mistress.

Sources

Morning Herald of 25^th, August 1781

Catalogue of pictures belonging to his Grace Duke of Portland (1894) by C Fairfax Murray

The Times (London, England), Tuesday, Feb 23, 1909

The Times (London, England), Friday, Sep 16, 1927

Files regarding works of art: Gainsborough, Mrs Eliott, ex-Duke of Portland, ca. 1927-1946 Getty Research Institute

 

Alexander Roslin (1718-1793)

Alexander Roslin  (1718-1793) was a Swedish portrait painter who worked in Europe painting the aristocracy, and whose work I have only recently become familiar with. This post, I have to confess contains nothing new and is somewhat self indulgent because I’m ever so slightly in love with his paintings. However, I thought, if you’ve never come cross him before you might enjoy taking a quick peek at his some of his work.

This hope hopefully gives a glimpse into the detail of his work and shows his skill at recreating fabric, jewels and flowers using the medium of paint. I would love to know what you think of his paintings and whether you like them … or perhaps not. Do let me know.

We begin with a portrait of Jeanne Sophie de Vignerot du Plessis, also known as the Countess of Egmont Pignatelli, who hosted a salon which gathered “the literary celebrities of the days”, including Voltaire and Rousseau, and opposed Madame du Barry. The recreation of her dress, we think is absolutely stunning, so much detail when you look at the small image. The idea of her being an educated woman being shown with the addition of music and a book. I love the little dog at her side, obviously wanting some attention.

The Comtesse d’Egmont Pignatelli in Spanish Costume, 1763. Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Next we have Anastasia Ivanovna, Countess of Hesse-Homburg, Princess Trubetskaya (1700-1755). Anastasia belonged to the leading members of the Russian Imperial court and aristocratic life, and often hosted the monarchs as guests in her home. She was also appointed Dame of St Catherine, (which is something we’ve looked at in a previous post about Princess Charlotte of Wales),and lady in waiting to Empress Elizabeth. She left for Germany in 1745, and did not return until 1751, after which she became a noted philanthropist. Again, she is accompanied by a book and her little dog, again looking for some attention from its mistress – perhaps a trademark of Roslin’s.

Anastasia Ivanovna, Countess of Hesse-Homburg, Princess Trubetskaya. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

We move on to Reichsgräfin von Fries, née Gräfin Anna d’Escherny (1737-1807). As I haven’t managed to find out anything about this lady we’ll simply focus on the painting itself. Again we see an indication of her love of music, she’s sporting a plumed headdress and wearing a white satin gown with contrasting fur-trim, which is so realistic you could almost stroke it; the sleeves trimmed with the most exquisite lace.

Reichsgräfin von Fries, née Gräfin Anna d’Escherny (1737-1807). Christie’s

Marie Amelie, Duchess of Parma (1746-1804), was the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I and the sister of Queen Marie Antoinette. This time no sign of music or books, just a fan, but the detailed bead work on the bodice is excellent.

This young woman’s identity seems to have become lost in the mists of time, but the detail in Roslin’s work remains in this portrait, even down to the detail in the corsage she’s wearing.

Unknown Lady, called Baroness de Neubourg-Cromière. Nationalmuseum, Sweden

To finish, we have a portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828), the Empress consort of Russia as the second wife of Tsar Paul I. Maria was described as ‘tall, fair, fresh, extremely short-sighted and inclined to be stout‘. This court dress, we think, makes quite a statement and naturally she’s wearing the Order of St Catherine. Apparently she dressed like this every day as she loved the pomp and ceremony associated with court life and made the same demand on her entourage – can you imagine being dressed like this, all day, every day?

Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna. The Hermitage Museum

Featured Image

Archduchess Marie Christine. The Atheneum

A Right Royal Face Off by Simon Edge

We are delighted to welcome the author, Simon Edge, journalist, critic and novelist, to our blog to tell us more about the challenges he face when writing his latest novel, due to be released in a few days time, A Right Royal Face Off: A Georgian Entertainment featuring Thomas Gainsborough and Another Painter. So, with that, we’ll hand you over to Simon:

My first novel was based on the life of the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. The historical parts were set in the 1870s and 1880s and it did not require a huge effort to think myself into his era. Surrounded as we are by Victoriana – in our culture, our civic infrastructure and the clutter of antique fairs or auction rooms – it’s easy to have an instinctive feel for how the Victorians ate, got around, furnished their homes and so on.

Gainsborough’s House Sign. © Simon Edge

When I came to write a comic novel about Thomas Gainsborough and his rivalry with Sir Joshua Reynolds for the affections of the Royal Family, I found myself on less sure ground.

The historical events of A Right Royal Face-Off take place between 1777 and 1785, a century earlier than my previous period. Did I have any clear idea what forms of technology were new at that time, and what was about to be invented?

Was I confident of what well-to-do Londoners had for their dinner, or what time of day they ate it? Could I picture a Georgian hackney carriage, or a Georgian newspaper? No, no and no again.

These things are far from unknowable, of course. The works of Fielding, Swift, Sterne or Thackeray offer plentiful insights, and I wince as much as any other visitor to All Things Georgian at the anachronisms in a bad film adaptation of Jane Austen.

However, I didn’t have any instinctive sense of the difference between the 1770s and, say, the 1720s or the 1820s, so there was a high risk of howlers. Most readers don’t have that sense either, but if it’s worth doing historical fiction, it’s worth getting it right.

Gainsborough’s House. © Simon Edge

I live very close to Gainsborough’s House, the painter’s birthplace museum in Suffolk, so I could examine his painting table, the kind of paintbox he might have used, the sort of mannequin he would have employed for human figures in his early paintings (painfully apparent in portraits such as ‘Mr and Mrs Andrews’), and so on.

Mr and Mrs Andrews by Thomas Gainsborough; The National Gallery, London

However, I needed basic guidance on ordinary living – the kind of stuff that novelists needs to get our characters out of bed in the morning and to take them through the day.

The trick, especially when you have a deadline, is to find a good guide who can help you cut corners, and mine was Fanny Burney. Her novel Evelina, about a country innocent introduced to London ways, was published in 1778 – spot on for my needs. Joy of joys, my edition came with detailed footnotes explaining hairdressing fashions, the dates of the London season and the difference between a sedan chair, a hackney-coach and a chariot.

A painters mannequin. © Simon Edge

Another boon was A Country Parson, the diary kept by the Norfolk vicar James Woodforde between 1759 and 1802. First published in the 1920s, its attraction for generations of readers is its homely detail, with meticulous records of meals taken, conversations with servants, journeys made, and so on. Woodforde lived a rural life, but he came from a similar class to Gainsborough and I found him invaluable every time I needed to give my characters a good feed. For example, when Gainsborough’s journalist friend Henry Bate-Dudley drops in for lunch, I provide him with a lobster, some mackerel, veal cutlets, a mutton leg with caper sauce, and a pig’s face, followed by a pineapple, oranges, a melon, damson tarts and a syllabub. If that gives you indigestion just thinking about it, take it up with Parson Woodforde.

An 18th century paintbox. © Simon Edge

A major issue for anyone writing historical fiction is language, particularly if the narrative is in the first person. You need to avoid anachronism – no shots in the arm or rollercoaster journeys, for example. That may sound obvious, but these things have a way of sneaking in. I once made myself unpopular with a writer friend by objecting to his description of buddleia (named after the 17th-century Reverend Buddle) in a novel about Roman Britain. Nobody loves a smartarse, but that doesn’t mean I was wrong.

Making characters sound authentic to their period isn’t just about avoiding modern slang – you need phrases of the time, too. I plunged into Fielding’s Tom Jones and made lists of idiomatic expressions: ‘he gave loose to mirth’, ‘she opined’ or ‘you are of the vulgar stamp’.

Gainsborough’s Painting Table. © Simon Edge

It took me back to my A-levels, trying to shoe-horn a list of idioms into French and German essays, and there is clearly a danger of trying too hard. Perhaps the best you can hope is that you fall into the right kind of linguistic groove. Total authenticity is not the aim.

One well-known literary novel from the 1980s, based on a brilliant idea, is virtually unreadable because it’s written in pedantically accurate 17th-century English. Better to suggest your period and not become inaccessible. A bestselling historical novelist friend insists this is all about word order: rearranging a sentence very slightly can create an impression of unfamiliarity, without forcing the reader out of their linguistic comfort zone.

Gainsborough’s House, Garden Plaque. © Simon Edge

I also found profanity very useful. We know from Gainsborough’s letters that he was a fantastically sweary person, so in my version he constantly calls the servants addlepates, whoresons and coxcombs. No doubt some of those expressions are ruder than others, just as we have our acceptable swear-words and our beyond-the-pale ones nowadays, but I used them interchangeably. It’s a comic novel, not a doctoral thesis on 18th century idiom.

I hope it entertains people, because that is the primary intention, but I’ll also be delighted if readers feel at home in my version of Georgian England. My bestselling historical novelist friend told me that my 18th century world was “lightly but effectively drawn”. I took that as the highest compliment.

Art Detectives: The Mysterious Sir Thomas Mills and Lady Elizabeth

Sir Thomas Mills by Joshua Reynolds. McCord Museum

As you will probably be aware by now, we have been busy researching Dido Elizabeth Belle and as part of this, we have looked at those within the inner circle of her extended family. This has led us to look at Sir Thomas Mills, who was reputed to be the ‘nephew’ of Lord Mansfield. We have tried to find confirmation as to Mills actual connection to Lord Mansfield, but without any success so far. Some accounts record him as Lord Mansfield’s ‘nephew’, others as a ‘consanguineal relative’ and others that he was really Lord Mansfield’s ‘illegitimate son’. Neither appear to be true.

He seems to have appeared from nowhere and the only clue as to his identity is that he had a sister, Elizabeth, who died in Edinburgh according to the newspapers on May 9th 1775, however, there’s no obvious burial for her.

The Scots Magazine 01 May 1775

It appears that Mills was born in Scotland around 1736-1738 to a mother who never left her native country.  To date, we’re unable to place Lord Mansfield in Scotland, but who knows, maybe he nipped back across the border for a brief liaison and Mills was the result, but it does seem highly unlikely.

Whatever the relationship, Lord Mansfield was extremely fond of him. He regularly dined at Caenwood House. Sylvester Douglas (Lord Glenbervie), a prominent lawyer and diplomat wrote of Mills, that he was illiterate but frank, friendly and dashing and had served with ‘distinguished bravery’. Mills was given the post of Governor of Quebec after his military service, it appears that Lord Mansfield had a hand in arranging this position.

It is rare for us to take such an immediate dislike to someone we write about, but this character is one with very few redeeming qualities. He was a spendthrift and it appears a liar too; spent money like water, getting himself and his family into debt. Everything we’ve read about him seems to be negative, so it seems strange that Lord Mansfield had such a soft spot for him, unless there’s something we’re missing!

Lady Elizabeth Mills by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Courtesy of Philip Mould Ltd

We then came across this beautiful miniature by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which is of a Lady Elizabeth Mills, née Moffatt, who was baptised 29^th January 1756 at St Mary Woolnoth, London, the daughter of Andrew and Katherine (née Creighton) Moffatt. Her father, Andrew was a merchant and both he and his brothers were heavily involved with the East India Company.

Andrew Moffatt by Lemuel Francis Abbott Courtesy of Nick Cox at Period Portraits

The family lived at Cranbrook House in the extremely affluent area of Ilford, Essex, opposite Valentines and next to Highlands, an area where all the well-to-do families who were connected with the East India Company lived.

Courtesy of Valentine Mansion.com

In November 1774, Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Mills, when she was just 18, a marriage which would prove to be an interesting one.

Caledonian Mercury 12 November 1774

A marriage settlement was made by Elizabeth’s father of some £10,000 (just under one million today) but despite this large sum of money, Mills continued to spend more than he earned and even had to be bailed out by his father-in-law on more than one occasion, to the extent that Andrew Moffatt made provision in his will of 1780, for his siblings, daughters and grandchildren, but specifically mentioned that his son-in-law was indebted to him to the tune of £5,000, a debt which he wanted to be reimbursed to the estate as soon as possible, he was clearly not impressed by his son-in-law! It was slightly strange, as he also left Sir Thomas £100. Which seems to make little sense in light of his debt. Andrew also left 20 guineas to his good friend Lord Mansfield for him to buy a ring in memory of him and money for Elizabeth’s sole use, exclusive of her husband.

Despite our view of Sir Thomas, Elizabeth must have felt something for him, as the couple produced three children – Andrew Moffatt Mills born just over 9 months after they wed; Elizabeth Finch Mills (1776) and finally Catherine Crichton Mills (1779).

According to the Oxford Journal of July 1772

When Sir Thomas was returning home in a chair, he was surrounded by four street robbers in Windmill Street, Haymarket, who stopped the chair, and one of them presented a pistol and demanded his money. Sir Thomas told them that he would not be robbed and endeavoured to seize the pistol, at this point one of the assailants fired, he missed Sir Thomas who burst open the chair door and attacked the robbers who then fled. There were no watchmen nearby and the chairmen didn’t even try to assist to apprehend the robbers.

Was this a ‘set-up’? It seems highly likely, in our opinion.

Sir Thomas Mills died 23 February 1793 and left no will and it appears with no money either to leave, but despite what the newspapers said, he was not named as a beneficiary of Lord Mansfield’s will, who died 20^th March 1793.

Kentish Gazette 22 March 1793

His wife Elizabeth died in June 1816.

History tells us that the Moffatt family were plantation and slave owners in Jamaica, as the family went on to make claims in 1832 for monies owed for freed slaves.

Sources

Valentine’s Mansion and Gardens

Legacies of British Slave Ownerships

The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson

The Westminster Magazine, Or, The Pantheon of Taste, Volume 8

Essex Parish Registers 1537-1997, Familysearch

Art Detectives: Thomas Gainsborough’s red-headed beauty

In our latest book, which is based on our blog and titled All Things Georgian: Tales from the Long Eighteenth-Century, one of the 25 true tales within tells of the life of the red-headed actress, Elizabeth Hartley. Elizabeth was a beauty, but not particularly vain; she disparagingly said of herself ‘Nay, my face may be well enough for shape, but sure ‘tis freckled as a toad’s belly’.

Elizabeth Hartley by Angelica Kauffman as Hermione in The Winter’s Tale. Image via the Garrick Club Collection.

Born Elizabeth White, and from Berrow in Somerset, Elizabeth had a sister, Mary, who also had strikingly red hair. Mary made a good marriage to the Reverend, later Sir Henry Bate Dudley, minister, playwright and newspaper editor, a ‘witty and profligate man’ who glorified in the nickname, the Fighting Parson.

Rev Henry Bate Dudley by Thomas Gainsborough, c.1780 (image sourced via Pinterest).

While researching Elizabeth Hartley we came across a Thomas Gainsborough portrait held by the Ascott Estate (National Trust), painted in the late 1780s and depicting a woman with red hair. The identity of the subject is disputed: it is labelled as either Lady Mary Bruce, Duchess of Richmond or Elizabeth Hartley.

This is the painting.

A portrait of a red haired lady by Thomas Gainsborough, c.1786/1787. Ascott, The Anthony de Rothschild Collection (National Trust)

We contacted the estate who gave us some information from their guidebook relating to the portrait.

John Hayes has called this ‘one of the most ravishing of Gainsborough’s late romantic portraits. . . . The enigmatic smile and slightly distant expression heighten the poetic mood of the canvas.’ The supposed sitter was the daughter and co-heir of Charles, 4th Earl of Elgin and 3rd Earl of Aylesbury by his third marriage, in 1739, to Caroline, daughter of the 4th Duke of Argyll. She married in 1757 Charles, 3rd Duke of Richmond and Lennox. There were no children of the marriage and the title devolved upon a nephew.

The picture has been called a ‘late London work’ by Waterhouse, and ascribed more precisely by Hayes to 1786–7, when Lady Mary would have been more than 45 years old. In an endeavour to resolve the discrepancy between the sitter’s apparent age and the evident date of the picture, it has been suggested that she is the wife, Lady Louisa Gordon Lennox, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond, and not the sister-in-law of Thomas Conolly, to whom this picture is said to have belonged, but neither the dark-haired Hugh Douglas Hamilton pastel of her at Springhill, Co. Londonderry, nor the Romney of her at Goodwood, Sussex, bear this out. Yet nor can one detect any resemblance with the equally dark-haired sitter in the Chardinesque Reynolds of Mary, Duchess of Richmond, sewing that is likewise at Goodwood.

Two of the images mentioned of Mary, Duchess of Richmond are shown below and we think you’ll agree that they look nothing like the redhead in the Gainsborough held by the Ascott Estate.

Pastel of Lady Mary Bruce, Duchess of Richmond by Hugh Douglas Hamilton; via Wikimedia

Mary, Duchess of Richmond, sewing by Joshua Reynolds, 1767 (via Wikiart).

There appears to be no record as to why it is suggested that it may be a portrait of Elizabeth Hartley, other than the obvious red hair, but if it is not Elizabeth, we have another suggestion for the identity of the sitter in the Ascott portrait. We believe that she might be Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, Lady Bate Dudley. The Fighting Parson was a patron of Gainsborough, and a good friend to the artist. Thomas Gainsborough painted Henry Bate Dudley in 1780.

And, in 1787, he painted a glorious full-length portrait of Mary, Lady Bate Dudley. Did he also paint a second portrait around the same time? We think that the lady in the Ascott portrait bears a marked resemblance to Lady Bate Dudley. The two images below are from the known 1787 portrait of Mary, both unfortunately losing some of the impact of the true colour of the original which was recently exhibited at the Tate. The gallery label at the time said that:

Mary Bate-Dudley was married to Gainsborough’s friend and champion, Henry Bate-Dudley. She’s shown here in a romantic woodland setting, leaning on a classical pedestal and an urn. Her pose is languid yet statuesque and the gesture of her left hand suggests a refined sensibility. Unusually in Gainsborough’s art, Lady Bate-Dudley’s head is shown in profile. This is a dramatic ploy intended to elevate the painting beyond the everyday world of conventional portraiture to the realm of High Art.

Gallery label, February 2016

Lady Mary Bate Dudley by Thomas Gainsborough, 1787 (via Web Gallery of Art)

Detail from the full length portrait of Lady Mary Bate Dudley, 1787 by Thomas Gainsborough (private collection via Wikiart).

As an aside to this, Henry Bate Dudley did have a connection to Lady Mary Bruce, Duchess of Richmond as, in 1780, the Fighting Parson was sentenced to a year in prison for libelling her husband. And, you can read more about him and his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, in the pages of All Things Georgian: Tales from the Long Eighteenth-Century, available now in the UK in hardback and illustrated with over 100 colour images.

The Isherwoods: Brewers of Windsor

The Nottingham born artist, Paul Sandby, painted and drew many scenes in and around Windsor and also informal portraits of some of the inhabitants. One of his drawings, held in the Royal Collection, caught our eye: the Miss Isherwoods, the Brewer’s daughters, c.1770-1780. Isherwood is an uncommon surname, and with the father’s occupation, surely it would be possible to track down the forenames of these two young women and complete the attribution?

Miss Isherwoods, the Brewer’s daughters, Windsor, c.1770-1780, by Paul Sandby. © Royal Collection Trust

The father of these two young women was Henry Isherwood who owned an ale brewery which traded from premises on Datchet Lane/Lower Thames Street in Windsor (around where St George’s School now stands on Datchet Road). From the brewhouse yard, you had an excellent view of Windsor Castle.

View from Mr Isherwood’s Brewhouse, Datchet Lane; view down a street, with wagons in a shed at the foot of it, and Windsor Castle beyond, by Paul Sandby. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Henry Isherwood was reputed to be ‘a poor lad’ from Yorkshire who had made his way to Eton in Berkshire where he found work at the Christopher Inn. He married well, to Sarah Kendal (on 5 May 1737 at Hedgerley in Buckinghamshire) whose money helped her husband establish his brewery at Windsor (the town had a thriving brewing industry).

Part of Windsor from Datchet Lane c. 1780 by Paul Sandby. The viewpoint is taken from Datchet Lane to the east of Isherwood’s Brewery. © Royal Collection Trust

The couple had three known children, a son, Henry (baptized 9 February 1739) and two daughters, the two young ladies in the drawing above, Sarah (born c.1743) and Christiana Maria (born c.1745). The family prospered and grew wealthy on their business’s profits.

Paul Sandby in 1761, painted by Francis Cotes. The Tate

Also in the Royal Collection is a drawing by Sandby which features another of the Isherwood family, although the name of the man depicted seems to have got muddled over time. When exhibited at the Royal Academy, the man stood on the far left was just denoted as ‘Isherwood the brewer’, a later mount now attached to the picture claims the man to be J. Isherwood and the notes on the RCT website mark the man out as Henry Isherwood senior. However, this drawing dates to 1760 and the man depicted looks to be very young; we believe that it is more likely the man shown is Henry Isherwood junior, who would have been around 21 years of age in 1760.

On Windsor Terrace, c.1760 by Paul Sandby; on the left is Isherwood, the brewer. © Royal Collection Trust.

The four men are standing on Windsor Terrace; in the middle is Davis, Windsor Castle’s smith and to the right a man identified as Captain Archibald Campbell (the RCT notes suggest that he is possibly the same man who married Amelia Ramsay, daughter of the painter Allan Ramsay, but as Amelia Ramsay’s future husband saw action in the Seven Years’ War, we’re not totally sure about this).

Windsor Castle from Mr Isherwood’s Brewhouse in Datchet Lane, 1780 by Paul Sandby. King George III’s personal coloured views collection – SPL Rare Books

Then tragedy struck the family. Henry Isherwood senior died suddenly in 1773… and it was hinted that he had been poisoned.

Henry Isherwood’s will left his family well provided for. His son took over the running of the brewery and also later – for just a short time – became New Windsor’s MP. Henry junior’s death, on 22 January 1797, cut short his parliamentary career. Sarah and Christiana Isherwood were both left financially secure by their father, each receiving 8,000l. They never married. Around 1790, the Isherwood family built a substantial mansion-house, situated in large grounds, at Bushey in Hertfordshire and named Laurel Lodge. There Sarah and Christiana lived in their old age, often visited by their brother’s children. (Laurel Lodge was remodelled in the late 1800s and has now been converted into flats known as Herne Mansions (formerly Sparrows Herne House); it stands in Bushey Heath down Fuller Close, a short distance from the junction of Little Bushey Lane and Elstree Road.) Sarah died in 1820 aged 77 and Christiana in 1827, aged 81. Both women are buried in the churchyard at New Windsor.

We’ve already mentioned Henry Isherwood senior’s melancholy end. We’ll relate the events leading up to his death and leave you to decide if he was indeed poisoned.

The north front of Windsor Castle from Isherwood’s Brewery in Datchet Lane c. 1765, by Paul Sandby. © Royal Collection Trust

Henry was a member of the Colnbrook Turnpike Commission and on 29 March 1773, he and the other members dined at an inn named The Castle, at Salt Hill outside Slough. The men present were the Hon Mr O’Brien, the Hon Captain Thomas Needham (aged 33 and the eldest son of ‘Jack’, 10th Viscount Kilmorey), Edward Mason Esq, Major Mayne, Mr Cheshire, Walpole Eyre Esq (aged 38 and whose godfather was Sir Robert Walpole, hence his name), Captain Salter, Henry Isherwood, Mr Joseph Benwell, a draper from Eton who was the Commission’s treasure, Mr Pote senior (on business) and Mr Burcombe, the Commission’s surveyor. Over the course of the next two weeks, all but one of the gentlemen were taken seriously ill. At first, the wine was suspected to be the cause; Captain Salter had preferred to drink punch instead, and Mr Cheshire had drunk very little. Both men were only mildly ill. It was initially believed that Mrs Partridge, the landlady, had added a little arsenic to the wine, to ‘refine’ it.

Bachelor’s Hall, Robert Dighton. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

The dinner was turtle soup, followed by fish, jack, perch and eel, spatchcock fowls, bacon and greens, veal cutlets, a ragout of pigs ears, a chine of mutton and salad, a course of lamb and cucumbers, crayfish and, as if you needed more after that feast, pastry and jellies. All was described as:

…plain and innocent, nothing high-seasoned, or that could give cause of suspicion of any bad consequence; the wine, Madeira and Port, of the best sorts. In both articles of meat and drink, the company were moderate, and no excess appeared.

After their dinner, some people were brought in to be examined before the members of the commission, among them a poor man, in a ‘distressed, miserable condition’. He seems to have been in ill-health. Mr Pote, perhaps wisely it seems, had gone out to the gardens of the inn to stretch his legs; he was there on other business relating to the commission but had no need to be present during the examinations. Mr Pote was the only one of the company not to suffer any ill effects, all the others fell ill to varying degrees. Four of the men died: Captain Needham, Joseph Benwell, Walpole Eyre and Henry Isherwood.

The Honourable Thomas Needham (d.1773), in the Uniform of the 3rd Footguards at Ascot, Buckinghamshire, by Thomas Gainsborough; National Trust, Ascot

Mrs Partridge was horrified and willingly allowed her kitchen and cellar to be fully inspected. Major Mayne’s doctor, Dr James, was of the opinion that his patient’s illness was due to an infection; if it had been poison, he assured the public, the men would have fallen ill within hours, not days. There were reports that a Clerk of the Justices, a Mr Mason who had dined on beefsteaks in a private room in the inn (confusingly, an Edward Mason Esq was said to be present at the commission’s dinner too), was also dangerously ill; the Justices had examined a poor man, brought before them in a ‘dying condition’ from Taplow to be passed to his own parish. This man later died, as did the farmer at whose house he lodged on his journey. Local gossip also claimed that several prisoners had travelled from Reading gaol on their way to London, to be transported for their crimes, and stopped at the inn. Gaol fever could have been the cause.

A view of the interior of a room at an inn in Salt Hill (prepared for the “Montem” dinner in 1793). © British Library

In short, it appears from the newspapers of the day that there was certainly an outbreak of a contagious fever in the area, but nevertheless, with all the talk of poison, trade at the Castle Inn dropped dramatically and Mrs Partridge struggled for a good twelve months afterwards. And, rumours abounded years later. Years later, Queen Charlotte’s Assistant Keeper of the Wardrobe, Charlotte Papendick, in her memoirs recounted the tale and claimed that Mrs Partridge, on her deathbed, confessed.

…she considered it right to disclose the secret of the poisoning now it could no longer hurt any individual, and was at the time purely accidental, she would confess that it arose from the turtle having been left in the stewpans cold, and then heated afresh for the dinner. The cook, renowned for the dressing of this favorite luxury, came down from London late the evening before, expressly for this purpose. He said that as the turtle was better for long stewing, he should do it through the night, during which time he would be preparing various other dainties. He didn’t keep to his word. He slept, let the fire out, and heated the turtle soup up again without removing it from the pan… From the acids used in dressing the turtle, the pan was covered with verdigris. When she showed it to the cook he said he wasn’t aware of harm…

In fairness, Mrs Papendick’s account contains many errors, so we’re not at all sure of her accuracy. Another account also blames the soup, however, again attributing the poisoning to an accidental cause. The soup had been allowed to stand in a copper vessel, and the gentlemen died of mineral poisoning. So, arsenic in the wine, mineral poisoning, a bad batch of turtle soup or an infectious pauper? Sadly, we’ll never know the true cause, but we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Sources not mentioned above:

The Bath Road: History, Fashion & Frivolity on an Old Highway by Charles G. Harper, 1899

Royal Academy: 1934 – Exhibition of British Art c.1000-1860, 6 January 1934 to 17 March 1934

Northampton Mercury, 26 April 1773

Reading Mercury, 26 April 1773

Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 5 February 1820

The Scots Magazine, vol 35, 1773

Collectanea topographica et genealogica, 1837

Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte; Being the Journals of Mrs Papendick, Assistant Keeper of the Wardrobe and Reader to Her Majesty, 1887

The History of Parliament online

Art Detectives: Young Woman with Servant

Following on from a blog about Dido Elizabeth Belle, one of our lovely readers made us aware of this unusual painting titled, Young Woman with Servant which is on display at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

Stephen Slaughter. English, 1697–1765.  Young Woman with Servant by Stephen Slaughter (1697-1765). Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund.

Why unusual? It is odd on so many levels. For starters the subject matter, it is titled ‘young woman with servant’ so which is the young woman and which the servant? Whilst looking at it, we found ourselves almost playing a game of ‘spot the difference’.

Let’s look at each woman in turn. The seated woman is wearing no jewels apart from very plain earrings and a jewel on her apron. The artist has made her face appear somewhat one-dimensional and she’s staring into the distance. Would she really have been the one holding the fruit? The hat with flowers is such, a typical wide-brimmed day hat.

The servant: she is dressed in all her finery, notice the detailed lace around the neckline and the arms of the dress, much more elaborate than the lace which the other woman is wearing. She wears no hat, instead, a form of headdress with a fashionable feather in it and a jewel. And those jewels! She is much more adorned than her seated companion, wearing an elaborate necklace and earrings too. Her hand resting on the naked skin of the other woman – would a servant ever be allowed to do that? A symbol of intimacy, surely not acceptable at that time?  She is also looking directly at the artist (and viewer) and appears much more three-dimensional. The dress may also be riding habit, if you look closely you can see the ‘frog fasteners’ typically used on outdoor wear.

The setting itself looks to be a hothouse or possibly an artificial grotto. There is fruit in the seated woman’s apron and the orange just about to be picked and added to it. Notice the chair that the ‘mistress’ is sitting on.

We have tried to find a similar example of that period, but without success, although there are reproductions of virtually the same chair dating from the late 1800s which describe it as Rococo (1725-1755), possibly French or Italian, playful, ornate and curvaceous, with a shell-shaped back and serpent arms.

So, it does rather beg the question, is the young woman standing really a servant or an equal? It has also been given the title, Two Society Women.

The painting appeared in a Sotheby’s catalogue of sales dated 19^th November 1986, which gave it a yet another, Ladies Gathering Fruit, c.1750, so we contacted Sotheby’s hoping for some more information on its provenance, but unfortunately, they were unable to provide responses to individual questions, so we were no further forward. We also approached Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and are still hopeful of a more positive response from them.

Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), Prime Minister by Stephen Slaughter; Parliamentary Art Collection

We then decided to research the artist himself, Stephen Slaughter for more clues.

Sir Hans Sloane, by Stephen Slaughter; National Portrait Gallery, London

Stephen was born in London in January 1697, one of five surviving children of Stephen and Judith Slaughter. Their other children were Edward, Catherine, Mary and Judith.

Very little seems to be known about his life and as such he warrants very few mentions in books, only half a dozen entries in the newspapers of the day, a brief resume in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies and a short entry on Wikipedia.

Gertrude, Daughter of John Leveson Gower, 1st Lord Gower by Stephen Slaughter; The National Trust for Scotland, Alloa Tower

Slaughter studied under the famous Godfrey Kneller, then travelled abroad to France and Flanders, returning to England around 1732. He then moved to Dublin for a number of years, returning to London in the 1740s.

In 1745 he was appointed Surveyor of the King’s Pictures (George II), with a salary of £200 per annum (around £24,000 in today’s money). From 1748 until his death in 1765, Slaughter spent time on picture restoration. He was buried on 2^nd April 1765 at Kensington.

Portrait of Sir Edward Walpole’s Children by Stephen Slaughter. Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Just to set the record straight here, only one of his female siblings married and that was his sister, Judith.

There has been much debate as to whether she married the artist John Lewis, but we can confirm that she didn’t –  she married a Paul Lewis, when she was aged just 16, as confirmed by the marriage allegation dated 4^th January 1726, St Giles in the Field.

Judith was widowed by the time her brother Edward wrote his will in April 1770. We can confirm, however, that the artist, John Lewis’s wife was Mary as named in his will, proven 1781.

Judith Slaughter’s marriage allegation to Paul Lewis, 1726.

Each of the siblings left their estate to the next in line with Catherine being the last to die in 1786.

Suggestions have been made that this is a portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle with Lady Mary Milner. This seems extremely unlikely as the two women look to be of similar age and Lady Mary was considerably older than Dido.

If we accept that it was painted by Stephen Slaughter then he died when Dido was a mere toddler so it couldn’t possibly be her in the painting. So either way, as much as we would like it to be a portrait of both women, the theory falls flat on its face.

The portrait raises far more questions than it answers, so if anyone knows anything more about this painting, we would love to hear from you.

UPDATE 9th March 2019 – A Painting Within a Painting

Well, we did ask people to get in touch if they knew any more about the painting and we were contacted by Sheila Graham-Smith who is presently researching it, which sent us disappearing down another rabbit hole.

To cut a long story short, we knew from the Sotheby’s sale catalogue that there was a familial connection between the Manvers family of Thoresby Hall and the Butterfield family at Cliffe Castle, so arguably the painting could be of someone from either side of the family, or simply a painting purchased by someone in the family for its aesthetic value.

Purely by chance, we came across this painting by Marie-Louise Roosevelt Pierrepont (1889-1984), of Thoresby Hall, which is a painting of her daughter, at Thoresby.

Interior of Thoresby Hall (incorrectly identified as Cliffe Castle), with a Seated Girl and Dog (and showing the portrait, ‘Ladies Gathering Fruit’ (alternatively Young Woman with Servant) by Marie-Louise Roosevelt Pierrepont; © The Stonebridge Trust. Photo credit: The Pierrepont Collection

To the back of the painting you will clearly see that she had painted in Slaughter’s painting, ‘Ladies Gathering Fruit‘ (alternatively titled, Young Woman with Servant). The location of the painting whilst at Thoresby was clearly not taking pride of place, merely hung at the end of a corridor.

I contacted Thoresby who were able to confirm that, whilst not presently on display, they do hold the painting by Marie-Louise Roosevelt Pierrepont, a prolific artist and that the location depicted was Thoresby Hall and not Cliffe Castle as queried by ArtUK, but that they don’t know anything more about the original.

We have now reached another dead-end with research in terms of identifying either of the sitters, but hopefully, we’ll get there eventually.

FURTHER UPDATE 30 JUNE 2020

I have recently been been sent yet another version of the painting, but note the differences. I now have no idea which would have been the original painting.

Sources

Ancestry.com. London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597-1921 [database on-line]

Anecdotes of Painting in England. Horace Walpole

Greater London Burial Index

The family of Allan Ramsay, principal portrait painter to George III

During research into Allan Ramsay, we have noticed that the information given online concerning his children is incorrect and – in some cases – missing altogether. So, today’s post is something of a genealogical exercise to fully document Ramsay’s twelve children, five sons and seven daughters, which, we hope, will prove informative for anyone else interested in Ramsay’s family. Plus, it is also just a fantastic opportunity to showcase some wonderful portraits and sketches.

Allan Ramsay, self-portrait c.1755-1756. National Galleries Scotland.

Born in Edinburgh and baptised on 6th October 1713 (according to the Gregorian calendar; 11 days need to be added to correspond to the Julian calendar), Ramsay was the eldest son of the poet and bookseller, Allan Ramsay (who was a wigmaker at the time of Allan’s birth) and his wife Christian neé Ross. Three of his siblings survived into adulthood, Janet, Catherine and Anne.

Miss Ramsay in a Red Dress c.1760-5 by Allan Ramsay. Believed to be one of Ramsay’s two sisters, Janet or Catherine. The Tate

Allan Ramsay junior’s talent was evident from an early age; his father described him as painting ‘like a Raphael’ and raised money to send Allan to Italy in order that he might study there.

By 1738, Ramsay was back in England, and he took rooms in the piazza in Covent Garden.

Covent Garden Market by Balthasar Nebot, 1737; Tate

A year later, on 29 April 1739, Ramsay married Anne Bayne, a fellow Scot and the daughter of Alexander Bayne of Rires. Around the time of their wedding (which took place at St Benet, Paul Wharf), Ramsay painted Anne’s portrait.

Anne Bayne, the first Mrs Allan Ramsay who died in 1743. Portrait painted by her husband around the time of their marriage, c.1739. National Galleries of Scotland

Three children were born to the couple, two sons Allan and Bayne, who both died young before Anne herself died in childbirth early in 1743 giving birth to a daughter who was named Anne, for her mother. She survived, at least for a few years. On 11 January 1747 another Anne Ramsay was buried in the churchyard at Covent Garden, this one a spinster. It seems probable that this was Ramsay’s sister, Anne.

Allan Ramsay’s infant son, Allan, who survived to just 14 months of age. Painted by Ramsay c.1740-1741. National Galleries of Scotland

Ramsay spent much of the following years in Scotland, where his fame grew, if not his wealth. He was supporting not only his young daughter but his two spinster sisters too, Catherine and Janet. Certainly Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick didn’t consider Ramsay a suitable husband for his 26-year-old daughter, Margaret, whom Ramsay was teaching to draw. Denied her father’s approval, Margaret eloped with Ramsay and they married on 1 March 1752 at the Canongate in Edinburgh.

Margaret Lindsay, the second Mrs Allan Ramsay. Portrait painted by her husband c.1758-1760. National Galleries of Scotland

Later that year, just a day shy of 33 weeks after the marriage, Margaret gave birth to twins. In an attempt to placate her father, who still disapproved of her husband, the babes were named Alexander and Amelia after Margaret’s parents; they were baptized on 17 October 1752 at St Paul’s in Covent Garden and sadly buried there the very next day. By the end of 1753, the Ramsays were back in Scotland, living in Edinburgh and there, in February 1754, another son was born, again named Alexander. This infant was left behind in Scotland when his parents travelled to Italy the following year. Margaret was soon pregnant once again.

A daughter, Amelia was born in March 1755 at Rome but sadly, back in Edinburgh, little Alexander had died; he was buried on 23 June 1755.

By the end of 1758, Ramsay had brought his family back to London and taken lodgings on the western side of Soho Square (then called King’s Square, the name given because of the statue of Charles II which stood there).

King Square in Soho, looking towards Monmouth House. © The Trustees of the British Museum

On 9 November 1758, another daughter was born to Allan and Margaret Ramsay; she was baptized with the name Elisabeth eight days later at St. Anne’s, Soho. Two more daughters were to swiftly follow, Frances born 16 February 1760 and Grizelda on 19 July 1761. Sadly, none were destined to live long: Grizelda lived for less than six weeks and was buried (as Grizell Ramsay) at Chiswick on 29 August and Elisabeth died almost a year later at three years of age. She was laid to rest in the Soho churchyard on 22 August 1762 where her sister Frances joined her on 4 July 1765.

A ray of light amongst the darkness was the birth of Charlotte in 1765, the youngest daughter of the family. Charlotte was strong and healthy and would survive.

Amelia Ramsay, daughter of the artist. Painted by her father and dated 8 July 1776. National Galleries of Scotland.

The final child born to Ramsay was a son, named John, who was baptized at St Marylebone on 14 June 1768. Probably he was named after his uncle, Margaret’s brother Sir John Lindsay who is perhaps better remembered as the father of Dido Elizabeth Belle.

Captain Sir John Lindsay (1737-1788 by Allan Ramsay); Glasgow Museums

Allan Ramsay suffered ill health during his later years and died at Dover on his return to London from Florence on 10 August 1784 and was buried at St Marylebone church on 18th August 1784 where Margaret had been buried two years earlier. But, what of their three surviving children, Amelia, Charlotte and John?

All three Ramsay siblings appear to have shared a love of adventure, for they travelled the globe. Amelia married an army officer, Archibald Campbell (later General Sir Archibald Campbell) at St Marylebone on 8 July 1779. Campbell was posted abroad (he was governor of Jamaica between 1781 and 1784) and Amelia and her sister, Charlotte sailed to be with him in 1780. They were aboard the storeship, British Queen, captain Hodge, in a convoy of 63 ships bound for the West Indies.

Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil and Ross KB, Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Madras by George Romney, 1790. National Army Museum

The ships were East and West Indiamen, storeships, victuallers and transports (with the 90th Regiment of Foot on board), and while it might have been felt that there was safety in numbers, it was a perilous time. Spain had sided with the US in the American Revolutionary War and declared war on Britain. At Cape St Vincent in the Algarve, on 9 August 1780, the convoy of British ships met a combined Spanish and French fleet and it was disastrous. All but eight of the British vessels were captured.

The action of 9 August 1780 when all but 8 ships out of a British convoy of 63 were captured by a combined force of French and Spanish. Image via Wikimedia

The new Mrs Amelia Campbell and her sister, Charlotte Ramsay were incredibly lucky; their ship, the British Queen, was one of the eight which evaded capture and they managed to make it unscathed to Jamaica and Campbell’s protection.

Seven years later, on 1 February 1787 and possibly in India, Charlotte married Lieutenant Colonel Henry Malcolm, Adjutant-General to the East-India Company’s troops on the coast of Coromandel, South East India.

John Ramsay joined the army and he too made his way to India. In 1789 a ship returning to England from Madras via St Helena numbered among the passengers:

Sir Archibald Campbell, K.B, family and suite; Mrs Malcolm… Capt. John Ramsay…

Amelia and Sir Archibald Campbell had no children, but she did bring up two children as her own, a boy who shared her husband’s name, Archibald Campbell and a girl born c.1784, Mary Macleod, who Amelia thought of as her adopted daughter.

Amelia Campbell née Ramsay died in 1813 and was buried (on 15 July 1813) in Westminster Abbey alongside her husband, Sir Archibald who had died 23 years earlier. (Their grave is in the south transept of the abbey, next to that of George Frederic Handel.) After Amelia’s death, Mary Macleod went to live with Charlotte who became as close to the girl as her sister had been; both Amelia and Charlotte left the bulk of their wealth to Mary. Indeed, Charlotte, in her will, declared that she viewed Mary as a daughter.

On 6 January 1837, Charlotte Malcolm née Ramsay was buried at St Marylebone. John Ramsay, who was promoted to the rank of general, lived until 1845; he died in Geneva.

John Ramsay; soldier, son of Allan Ramsay by François Ferrière, 1794. National Galleries of Scotland

The family home in Edinburgh

Allan Ramsay’s House. National Galleries Scotland

To recap, the children of Allan Ramsay are as follows:

By Anne Bayne:

Allan – 1740-1741

Bayne – 1741-? (died young)

Anne – 1743-? (died young after 1752)

By Margaret Lindsay:

Alexander and Amelia (twins) – 1752-1752

Alexander – 1754-1755

Amelia – 1755-1813

Elisabeth – 1758-1762

Frances – 1760-1765

Grizelda – 1761-1761

Charlotte – 1765-1837

John – 1768-1845

Notes:

For ease, we have used new style rather than old style dates, except where noted.

Ramsay’s daughter Anne, from his first marriage, was alive when he remarried in 1752 as she was mentioned in a letter he wrote to his father-in-law, but she did not survive into adulthood.

Elisabeth, born 9 November 1758, seems to have been confused in most, if not all sources for Charlotte born 1765. In fact, the short-lived Elisabeth, Frances and Grizelda appear to have been totally overlooked and Charlotte, known as one of only two Ramsay’s daughters by Margaret Lindsay to have survived to adulthood, ascribed to the 1758 birth on the basis of a letter written by Ramsay to Sir Alexander Dick congratulating Sir Alexander on the birth of a daughter and remarking that he had recently been similarly blessed.

In the 1851 census, Mary Macleod said she had been born at sea but was a British subject.

The Dipping and Drinking Wells at Hyde Park

In the early eighteenth-century, the Serpentine in Hyde Park was no large and ornamental lake, but rather a series of ponds described as consisting of dirty and stagnant water which were supplied by the Westbourne, a river which originated in the Hampstead and which, before entering Hyde Park, was joined by the ‘Cool Bourne’ (Kilburn) and a tributary called the Tyburn Brook or Stream. The Westbourne carried on under Knightsbridge to meet the Thames near Chelsea Hospital but, in Hyde Park, it ‘wandered about in a series of ponds’ until in 1730 Queen Caroline, the wife of George II, ordered that it be banked, forming the artificial lake we know today as the Serpentine.

Queen Caroline of Ansbach; Warwick Shire Hall

St Agnes’ Well was at the northern end of the lake (it was located about where the statue of Edward Jenner now stands). In the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries the springs of this well had two distinct uses.

The Drinking Well in Hyde Park by William Pickett c.1812.

St. Agnes’s Well, Hyde Park, considered one of the holy wells, existed as late as 1804, near the head of the Serpentine on its east bank, in a part of Hyde Park formerly known as Buckden Hill. There were two springs: one was used for bathing the eyes, and for the immersion of children, and is mentioned by Dr. Clippingdale in his paper on West London Rivers, as the ‘Dipping Well’; the water of the other, said to be medicinally potent, was sold in glasses by an attendant to visitors, amongst whom were many children of the richer classes, sent by their parents. The water was also taken away in jugs or bottles for consumption at home. It was probably mildly chalybeate.

The Drinking Well in Hyde Park, engraving by James Godby after Maria Spilsbury, 1802. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

The image above of the drinking well, showing a paid attendant allowing women and children to fill glasses from the small trough like well is an engraving from an original by the artist, Maria Spilsbury (1776-1820), who lived immediately opposite the site at her family’s house, 10 St George’s Row. Maria would have known this scene well.

The Illustrated London News, in 1908, contained an advert for Pears soap (invented in 1789) which waxed lyrical on the pastoral charms of old Hyde Park.

The spot was one of sweet sylvan beauty, to which mothers and nurses resorted in the morning hours with their infant charges, for the purpose of washing and bathing them in the fresh bubbling spring, caught at its source in a rustic open well. What more delightful mode of having a bath could be imagined than here in the pure open air, with the luxuriant glades dissolving into the distance behind, and deer loitering in the leafy shade? It is, indeed, a scene of grace, natural beauty, and enjoyment.

The Dipping Well in Hyde Park, engraving by James Godby after Francis Wheatley, 1802. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

The dipping well may also be depicted in the painting Juvenile Tricks by Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1808. The notes on the Tate website suggest that, as there appears to be a level of organisation in the boys’ activities in Turner’s depiction, that it might represent an apprentices’ initiation rite.

Juvenile Tricks by Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1808. The Tate

Sources:

Illustrated London News, 20^th June 1908

Old London’s spas, bath, and wells by Septimus Sunderland, 1915

Maria Spilsbury (1776-1820): Artist and Evangelist by Charlotte Yeldham, Routledge, 2017

Two Engravings (dated 1802) of the Drinking and Dipping Wells in Hyde Park by Sir StClair Thomson, M.D. (from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine)

Dido Elizabeth Belle – A new perspective on her portrait

In our previous blog about the turban that Dido Elizabeth Belle was wearing in the portrait of her with her cousin, the Honourable Lady Elizabeth Murray, we mentioned that the portrait was reputed to have been painted by Johann Zoffany and we promised to give you an update with some new information.

We now know more about the turban, courtesy of one of our lovely readers, Etienne Daly, who has been diligently researching Dido for some considerable years now and believes that the turban that Dido was wearing was not merely a fashion statement but was a gift to her from her father, Sir John Lindsay, so it was not part of a portrait ‘costume’ as had been assumed.

Sir John was invested as a Knight of the Bath in an extravagant ceremony in India on 11^th March 1771.

A sketch of Sir John Lindsay KB, Prince Of Arcot (and father of Dido Elizabeth Belle), as he would have looked around the time of his investiture at the Chepauk Palace, Madras, India on 11th March 1771 when he was the King’s ambassador to India.

At that time he was presented with ‘a very rich dress of gold brocade, made after the European manner with the star upon the left breast,’ a ring with several titles engraved on it in Persian and a turban, all given by Nawab Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah.

Muhammad Ali Khan, Nawab of Arcot by Tilly Kettle, c.1772-1776. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

We think it seems a lovely gesture that she would wear it as a ‘nod’ to her father, in the only known portrait of her. 

Dido Elizabeth Belle. The portrait hangs at Scone Palace in Perthshire.

If you look closely at the turban you will notice that it sparkles; it seems highly likely that it would have been studded with gold and diamonds. You will also note the presence of a black ostrich feather at the back of the turban. Now, this was a fashion statement! It is also worth mentioning that the fashion of the day was to wear rouge and Dido was no exception to this.

Ostrich feathers were all the rage in the mid-1770s and Dido’s uncle, Viscount Stormont bought some back from Paris in 1774. Perhaps he gave one to Dido and following the fashion, she added it to the turban?

The preposterous headdress, or the featherd lady, 1776. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Viscount Stormont also presented one to the Duchess of Devonshire on his return, and being the fashion doyenne of the day, she sent the fashion world into a spin by adding it to her hat. This sparked the caricaturists into a frenzy, creating the most elaborate caricatures with the largest of plumes, as you can see above.

The Duchess of Devonshire by Joshua Reynolds.

It has to be said that the Duchess of Devonshire was mocked mercilessly and according to the British Museum:

Lady Louisa Stuart wrote in her old age of “the outrageous zeal manifested against the first introduction of ostrich feathers as a headdress. This fashion was not attacked as fantastic or unbecoming or inconvenient or expensive, but as seriously wrong or immoral. The unfortunate feathers were insulted mobbed burned almost pelted…”. 

Massachusetts colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson by Edward Truman. Massachusetts Historical Society

When Thomas Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts, dined with Lord Mansfield in 1779 he met Dido and recorded the following in his diary:

A black came in after dinner and sat with the ladies, and after coffee, walked with the company in the gardens, one of the young ladies having her arm within the other. She had a very high cap and her wool was much frizzled in her neck, but not enough to answer the large curls now in fashion. She is neither handsome nor genteel – pert enough.

We now move on to look at the artist of the portrait. It has long been reputed to have been painted by Johann (John) Zoffany, but this is now disputed, and to this day it remains ‘artist unknown’.

It is acknowledged that Zoffany went to Europe for several years, finally returning to England at some stage in 1779 the very year that the portrait was reputed to have been painted.

From the account of his life, John Zoffany, R.A. his life and works: 1735-1810, it tells us that he remained in Coblenz well into the summer of 1779. Although not impossible, it certainly would have given him little time to have painted Dido on his return. So, if we discount Zoffany that leaves only a few other possible artists, two of whom we think were feasible. One would be Allan Ramsay’s protégé, David Martin (1737-1797), who was known to the family as he painted the stunning portrait of Lord Mansfield.

William Murray (1705-1793), 1st Earl of Mansfield; David Martin; English Heritage, Kenwood

The slight difficulty we have with the portrait of Dido and Lady Elizabeth Murray being painted by Martin is that again there is a question as to whether he was still living in England in 1779 or if he had returned to his native Scotland (although he retained his property in Dartford until 1782). Certainly, we know that in 1780 Martin was in Scotland when he was admitted to the Royal Company of Archers. Again, the dates are tight!

David Martin self-portrait. National Galleries of Scotland

If it was definitively painted in 1779, then it is feasible that he could have at least had some input into the work, especially as Ramsay had severely injured his hand a few years previously which stopped him taking on any major projects.

The other difficulty we have with Martin is that Etienne has checked Lord Mansfield’s accounts. These proved inconclusive.

So, that leaves only the principal painter to the King (George III), Allan Ramsay, and although we don’t have the expertise to validate this, with the research we have done it would appear far more likely that it was painted by him. Why? Well, there are several reasons to suppose this.

Allan Ramsay, self-portrait c.1755-1756. National Galleries Scotland.

Firstly, we understand that the portrait was commissioned by Lord Mansfield, but there is no record in his accounts of him paying for any such portraiture.

Secondly, given the socially precarious position Dido held in Georgian society, then why not ‘keep it in the family’? Especially when you have an extremely distinguished portrait artist as an uncle to call upon, in the guise of none other than the Scottish portrait painter, Allan Ramsay who was married to Margaret Lindsay, the sister of Sir John Lindsay.

The Artist’s Wife: Margaret Lindsay of Evelick, c 1726 – 1782 by Allan Ramsay. National Galleries Scotland

Thirdly, despite an earlier family ‘falling out’ over Ramsay being not regarded as a suitable match for Sir John’s sister, Margaret, we know that the family had been reconciled and Ramsay was, at this time, close to Dido’s extended family. Amongst his paintings, there was one, if not two portraits of Sir John Lindsay himself, so again, it would seem natural for him to paint his illegitimate daughter. Ramsay also named Lord Mansfield and Sir John Lindsay in his will, another sign of the close familial ties.

Captain Sir John Lindsay (1737-1788) by Allan Ramsay; Glasgow Museums

Finally, the posing of the subjects in the painting appears very relaxed and informal as if being painted by someone the girls knew well and were comfortable with.

Hopefully one day someone will be able to validate the artist and settle that unanswered question once and for all, perhaps one for the BBC’s Fake or Fortune to investigate!

To see the portrait of Dido and Lady Elizabeth in situ, it would be well worth a visit to Scone Palace, Perth, Scotland or to the home, where she spent many of her years, Kenwood  House (Caenwood as it was formerly known as), Hampstead.

During our research into the life of Dido, we have also discovered NEW information about Sir John Lindsay’s other illegitimate children and  NEW information about what became of Dido and her husband John Davinière. To find out more follow the highlighted links.

UPDATE

Following the BBC’s programme Fake or Fortune, you might be interested to read our thoughts on the findings.

Sources:

The History of the Royal Company of Archers: The Queen’s Bodyguard for Scotland by Sir James Balfour Paul

General Evening Post, September 14, 1771 – September 17, 1771

English Common Law in the Age of Mansfield, by James Oldham

John Zoffany, R.A. his life and works: 1735-1810

Art Detectives: Miss Mary Hatton by George Romney

I came across this portrait by George Romney, in the Frick Collection purely by chance, and wanted to know more about who the sitter was, so disappeared down one of my proverbial rabbit holes in search of more information about her.

Miss Mary Finch Hatton by George Romney, 1788. The Frick Collection

The first port of call was the Frick itself, who were extremely helpful and sent us all the information they had about the painting. So, exactly who was this enigmatic woman?

I knew that  Dido Elizabeth Belle’s cousin Lady Elizabeth Mary Murray had married into the Finch-Hatton family, but hadn’t come across this lady within the family, which slightly surprised us, as she would have been somewhere around the same sort of age as both Dido and Elizabeth, perhaps a little older, but not much.

Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, c.1778. Formerly attributed to Johann Zoffany. Now attributed to David Martin

Some sources had suggested that the portrait was possibly Lady Elizabeth Murray, but somehow that didn’t seem to fit, I couldn’t see a likeness at all.  There was another suggestion that she was a  different Lady Mary Hatton, the daughter of Daniel Finch-Hatton, 7th Earl of Winchilsea, but it couldn’t possibly be her, as she died in 1761 and the portrait wasn’t painting until 1788, also her appearance confirmed that it had to post-date 1761.

Eventually, I came across a book, Pictures in the Collection of Henry Clay Frick which contained the same portrait and confirmed that she was:

Miss Mary Hatton, the daughter of Sir John Finch-Hatton of Longstanton Hall, Cambridgeshire and wife of Hale Wortham Esq.

Further information from Romney‘s own ledger tells us the number of sittings it took to complete the painting, where Mary was living at the time and how much was paid.

It seems quite feasible that this was a pre-wedding painting, as Mary married a gentleman named Hale Wortham at St Marylebone, on 4th December 1788, the very year it was painted or perhaps her mother wanted a painting of her daughter as a keepsake.

St Marylebone church, by James Miller. YCBA

However, with more research, I discovered that even this information wasn’t quite accurate, she was not the daughter of Sir John Finch-Hatton, but his sister and that she was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Hatton, 8th Baron of Longstanton, Cambridgeshire (1728-1787).

The marriage allegation for Harriott Askham and Sir Thomas Hatton

Sir Thomas and his wife Harriott Dingley (daughter of Dingley Askham Esq), married 22 April 1752 and had 8 children – Mary, in the portrait, was the eldest and born 4 October 1754 at Conington, Cambridgeshire.

Her siblings were Harriet (1755); Frances (1757); John (1758) later to become the 9th Baronet; Elizabeth Ann (1759); Susanna (1761); Anne (1763) and the youngest, Thomas Dingley Hatton (1771) who became the 10th and final Baronet.  When Sir Thomas died in 1788 he helpfully named all his children individually in his will, so I am were now certain I have the correct person.

An entry in the Dictionary of National Biography suggests that before Mr Wortham, Mary’s hand in marriage had been sought by Dr Richard Farmer of Emanuel College, Cambridge.

At this time he [Farmer] formed an intimacy with Sir Thomas Hatton, bart., of Long Stanton, Cambridgeshire, and for some time aspired to the hand of his eldest daughter. The marriage was postponed on account of Farmer’s want of means, and when after many years this objection was removed, he found on mature reflection that his habits of life were too deeply rooted to be changed with any chance of perfect happiness to either party. Such is George Dyer’s version of the story; but Cole says: ‘Dr. Coleman told me, 3 May 1782, that he had it from sufficient authority, that Sir Thomas Hatton had refused his eldest daughter to Dr. Farmer, but upon what foundation he knew not. The lady is 27 or 28, and Dr. Farmer about 47 or 48. It will probably be a great mortification to both, as to every one it seemed that their regard for each other was reciprocal. Dr. Farmer’s preferment is equal to 800l. per annum; and I guess the lady’s fortune, there being six daughters and two sons, not very great’

Richard Farmer by George Romney. Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge

I still hadn’t worked out where the Finch-Hatton mistake had come from in her name, she was simply Mary Hatton, not Finch-Hatton. Even at her death, there was no reference to the Finch part of her surname. According to the Oxford Journal 1st November 1828 and the London Evening Standard, 21st October 1828:

Mary, relict of the late Colonel Wortham and eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Hatton, Baronet of LongStanton, died 17th October, aged 74.

So I moved on the checking her will, which was proven on 20 November 1828. Mary left a number of bequests to each of her living sisters, Anne, Elizabeth Ann, and Susanna, all just named as Hatton, not a ‘Finch-Hatton‘ in sight. She also left £200 (which is around £13k in today’s money) to Addenbrookes hospital.

Finally, this led me to the will of one of her siblings, Anne who died in 1842 and in her will she left part of the family estate to a relative – Rev Daniel Heneage Finch-Hatton, the son of Lady Elizabeth Murray, so it seems likely that is where the erroneous addition to Mary’s surname came from, but quite what their connection was to the Finch-Hatton’s we still haven’t managed to confirm, so, more work required!

Sources and Notes:

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 18: Farmer, Richard by Thompson Cooper

A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland by John Burke and Bernard Burke, 1841

Pictures in the Collection of Henry Clay Frick: at One East Seventieth Street, New York, 1910

Birth/baptism of Mary and her siblings – Familysearch online

The will of Sir Thomas Hatton (1788) – The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1161

The will of Mary Wortham nee Finch (1828) –  The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1748

The will  of Anne Finch (1832) – The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1799

Hale Wortham died February 19th, 1828 (Cambridge Chronicle and Journal 29 February 1828)

A chance discovery or a red herring: is this another portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott?

The earliest known portrait of the infamous eighteenth-century courtesan, Grace Dalrymple Elliott is a miniature painted by Richard Cosway around the time of her marriage to Dr (later Sir) John Eliot. It can be viewed on the cover of our biography of Grace, An Infamous Mistress.

Incidentally, Cosway lived on Berkeley Row where Grace was seen in a bagnio with the worthless Viscount Valentia, an indiscretion which led to a Criminal Conversation trial and her divorce; Cosway was called to the trial as a witness and testified to the disreputability of Mrs Jane Price’s house.

Then there are the two well-known portraits of Grace by Thomas Gainsborough, both now held in museums in New York. The full-length of Mrs Elliott was commissioned by her lover the 4th Earl (later 1^st Marquess) of Cholmondeley and hung in his mansion in Piccadilly, and remained there even after their romance was over and Grace was in Paris, in the arms of the Duke of Orléans. Reputedly, the young Prince of Wales stood in front of this portrait and expressed his wish to meet the original; Cholmondeley was despatched to Paris to bring Grace home and she enjoyed a few short weeks as the Prince’s paramour and gained a permanent reminder and claim to the royal purse in the form of their daughter, born nine months later, Georgiana Seymour. We have examined this portrait, now in the Met Museum, in more detail in a previous blog post.

Mrs Grace Dalrymple Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

While her star burned brightly as Prinny’s courtesan (she replaced Perdita aka the actress and courtesan Mary Darby Robinson in the prince’s affections), Gainsborough was commissioned to paint a head and shoulders portrait of Grace. Although by the time it was finished, the prince had long since abandoned its subject, it is a stunning portrait and one that gained an instant fame when it was first exhibited. Grace, it was thought, exuded a much too ‘knowing’ look.

Grace Dalrymple Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough

These are all the confirmed portraits of Grace. There is a chalk drawing by Hoppner which is traditionally thought to be of Grace, and the jury is out on this one with us. It could possibly be her (we’ve discussed this drawing before too, here).

An unidentified lady thought to be Grace Dalrymple Elliott by John Hoppner, British Museum.

But Grace was a noted beauty and, for many years, a fixture in the society gossip columns. We can’t believe that there were no other portraits of her. We know of none painted while she was resident in France, and the Duke of Orléans would surely have commissioned a portrait or at least a miniature of his stunning mistress. It was with some excitement then, that we noticed a pastel portrait supposed to be of Grace had been added on to The Getty site. The provenance for the sitter being Grace comes from a 1906 edition of The Connoisseur, in which the portrait is reproduced as a colour plate; it is this image which is on The Getty website. The publication gives no other evidence for claiming the sitter is Grace. However, we can’t see Grace in this portrait (although we’ll grant the nose is a similar shape). Doing a little digging we found that there are several versions of this portrait. Many have passed through various auction houses over the years, as a portrait of an unknown woman, one is held in Riga Castle and one in the Royal Collection where it is traditionally claimed to be a likeness of one of the daughters of George III. So, we’ll leave this one with you, for your response. Do you think it is Grace, or not?

Pastel portrait reproduced from The Connoisseur (1906) and claimed to be of Grace Dalrymple Elliott.

 

Left, the pastel portrait reputed to be of Grace Dalrymple Elliott and right, for comparison, a cropped image from the full-length portrait of Grace by Thomas Gainsborough.

 

Sources:

The Connoisseur, volume XVI, 1906

Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800

Sarah Trimmer née Kirby (1741-1810), author, critic and educational reformer

Sarah Trimmer née Kirby, author, critic and religious and educational reformer, was born in 1741 at Ipswich, the only daughter of the Suffolk landscape painter Joshua Kirby (a close friend of Thomas Gainsborough) and his wife Sarah née Bell. The Kirby family, including Sarah’s younger brother, William moved to London in 1755 where Joshua Kirby tutored the Prince of Wales (the future George III) in perspective.

Sarah Kirby (née Bull) and her husband (John) Joshua Kirby by Thomas Gainsborough, c.1751-52. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Many well-known personalities of the day counted the Kirbys as friends, including William Hogarth and Samuel Johnson and, as befitted the daughter of an artist, and one with social connections to the best artistic and literary talents of the day, Sarah later had her portrait painted three times, by Henry Howard, George Romney and Thomas Lawrence. She herself was a talented amateur artist, and several miniatures by her survive.

Sarah Trimmer by Sir Thomas Lawrence, c.1790. © National Portrait Gallery, London

In time, the family moved to Kew when Joshua Kirby was appointed Clerk to the Works of the Royal Household at Kew Palace and it was at Kew that Sarah met her future husband, James Trimmer whose family owned a brick making business at Brentford; the young couple married on 21^st September 1762, at Ealing. The notice of their marriage in the Ipswich Journal reveals the name by which Sarah was known to her family.

MARRIAGE – At Great Ealing, Mr. James Trimmer, of Brentford, to Miss Sally Kirby, of the Chapelry of Kew.

A View of the Palace at Kew from the Lawn, in the Royal Gardens at Kew, 1763. This plate was engraved after Joshua Kirby for William Chambers’s Plans, Elevations, Sections and Perspective Views of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew, published in 1763 and dedicated to the Dowager Princess of Wales. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

The Trimmers had twelve children in all, equally divided between boys and girls and – as she was responsible for their education – Sarah, both a mother and a teacher, discovered a lifelong passion for education. She founded the first Sunday school for poor children in 1786 and began to write and publish books, initially treatises on how to establish Sunday schools with a sub-text of social reform and then branching out into instructive works and fiction for children, such as her ‘Fabulous Histories’. She also reviewed children’s literature in her periodical, ‘The Guardian of Education’, with the aim of influencing both authors and publishers and redefining the content of these books.

She used to say, that as soon as she became a mother, her thoughts were turned so entirely to the subject of education, that she scarcely read a book upon any other topic, and believed she almost wearied her friends by making it so frequently the subject of conversation. Having experienced the greatest success in her plan of educating her own family, she naturally wished to extent that blessing to others, and this probably first induced her to become an author.

After James Trimmer died in 1792, Sarah and her unmarried daughters moved to Brentford, and it was there that she died on 15^th December 1810, in the act of writing a letter.

Sarah Trimmer by Henry Howard, c.1798. © National Portrait Gallery, London

She had been known to fall asleep at her desk in her study, and so when her daughters found her, with her head bowed forward onto her bosom, they assumed she merely slumbering and it was some time before they could be made to believe that she was dead. This gave rise to a few ‘Chinese whispers’ which were reported in the newspapers, with a slightly more lurid take on poor Sarah’s demise.

MRS TRIMMER – This authoress died under circumstances of a peculiar nature. Having received intelligence of the death of a favourite sister, she sat down to write a letter of condolence to her family; but soon after, on her female servant going into the room, she found her mistress sitting, apparently in the utmost composure, with her pen in one hand, and her head reclining on the other; in this attitude it appears that she died. What added to the singularity of this extraordinary occurrence was, that although she had been dead three weeks, her countenance had not changed in the least, and in consequence her relatives had directed that no interment should take place, in the hope (a vain one, it is feared) that the body might be recovered from a trance.

Sarah had no sister, favourite or otherwise, and her sister-in-law – and her brother – had both died some years previously. She was buried on the 5^th January 1811, in a family plot in St Mary’s churchyard, Ealing, the delay between her death and burial probably being more to do with the weather and the season rather than any fanciful notions supposed to have been entertained by the children of such an eminently sensible, moral and instructive mother.

Portrait of Sarah Trimmer by George Romney (1734-1802). Image taken from Illustrated Catalogue of the Fifth Series of 100 Paintings by Old Masters, being a portion of the Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 1899.

One of Sarah’s daughters, at least, followed in her footsteps; her daughters, Sarah (known as Selina) was appointed by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire to be the governess to their daughters and their cousins, including the future Lady Caroline Lamb. You can read more about Selina and her life as a governess in the Cavendish household here, in a blog post by Lauren Gilbert.

 

Sources not mentioned above:

Ipswich Journal, 25^th September 1762

Chester Chronicle, 1^st February 1811

Chalmer’s General Biographical Dictionary, volume 30

Brentford High Street Project: The Trimmer family

Featured image:

Sandpit near Sudbury, Suffolk by Joshua Kirby (1716-1774)

Miss Jenny Davis as a bride, 1780

Charles Davis (or Davies) was a painter and artists’ supplier who lived in Bath in the eighteenth-century. In 1778 he placed an advertisement in the Bath Chronicle which both promoted his own business and offered a house in Westgate Buildings for rental. The house was taken by another painter, Thomas Beach, who evidently got to know the Davis family very well for he painted Charles Davis as well as three other members of the family.

CHARLES DAVIS, Painter, the lower end of Westgate-street, near King’s mead-square, sells on the best terms, – All sorts of fine Colours, dry or prepared in oil or water… Crayons… N.B. A convenient House, with four rooms on a floor, situate in Westgate-Buildings, to lett.

East view of Bath Abbey c1805 (Victoria Art Gallery)

Charles Davis had married Hannah Rotten in 1764 at St. James’s in Bath. Thomas Beach’s portrait of Hannah was executed shortly before her death in 1782.

Mrs Charles Davis (1726-1782) by Thomas Beach; Victoria Art Gallery

The Davis’ only daughter was known as Jenny but was probably the Ann Davis born in Bath in 1766. She was painted by Thomas Beach twice.

Miss Jenny Davis by Thomas Beach; Victoria Art Gallery

In the second portrait of her, painted c.1780, Jenny is portrayed as a bride but it would be a further two years before she actually walked down the aisle of Bath Abbey to marry John Langton, a wholesale linen-draper from Cheapside. She married as Jenny Davis, on 16^th April 1782, by licence and with the consent of her father; if hers is the baptism found in 1766 then she was only aged around 16-years at the time of her wedding and was a mere 14-years-of-age when she posed as a bride for Thomas Beach.

Miss Davis as a Bride by Thomas Beach; Victoria Art Gallery

Eight years later, in 1790, the Davis’ eldest son, Charles Davis Jr, married Lydia Winter; by this union they are the grandparents of the noted Bath architect Major Charles Edward Davis. Lydia was also painted by Thomas Beach, after her marriage. (This painting is incorrectly noted in some sources as being the image of Charles Davis Senior’s second wife.)

MARRIAGES – Thursday, at St. Andrew’s church, Holborn, Mr. Charles Davis, jun. of Bath, to Miss Lydia Winter, of New Ormond-street.

Mrs Charles Davis, Grandmother of Major C. E. Davis by Thomas Beach; Victoria Art Gallery

Charles Davis Senior married for a second time on 18^th October 1792, to Dorothy Townley. The marriage took place at St George’s in Bloomsbury. Dorothy was the sister-in-law of the Bath born actor, Richard Wroughton, who trod the boards of both the Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres to some acclaim, and who was later a theatre manager. He was an ‘actor of the old school, in which he always maintained a most respectable rank; and as a private Gentleman he was throughout life deservedly respected and esteemed’. Dorothy was mentioned alongside Richard Wroughton in the will of the actress Elizabeth Bennet who died in 1791. Richard Wroughton’s first wife had been Joanna Wroughton.

MARRIAGES – Mr. Charles Davis, of Mount Beacon, near Bath, to Miss Townley, sister-in-law to Richard Wroughton, Esq; of Charlotte-street, Bloomsbury.

Charles Davis (1741-1805) by Thomas Beach; Victoria Art Gallery

 

Sources used:

Dictionary of pastellists before 1800 (online edition), Neil Jeffares

British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections: An Index of British and Irish Oil Paintings by Artists Born Before 1870 in Public and Institutional Collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Christopher Wright and Catherine May Gordon. (Yale University Press, 2006)

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, part two: 1798-1803, edited by Ian Packer and Lynda Pratt.

A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1600-1800, volumes 1 and 2, Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Langhans. (SIU Press, 1973)

A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1600-1800: W. West to Zwingham, Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Langhans. (SIU Press, 1993)

Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 18^th April 1782

Kentish Gazette, 23^rd April 1790 and 26^th October 1792.

Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 10^th February 1822

James Turner and George White, beggars and artists’ models

James Turner and George White were beggars and it might seem odd that they should have been immortalised in works of art by the likes of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Nathaniel Hone, the elder. In actual fact they were used by some of the greatest painters of the eighteenth-century as artist’s models, a nice side-line which supplemented their income derived from begging on the London streets and as casual labourers.

James Turner, with his long white hair and flowing beard and his wise, wrinkled and well-lived-in face was painted in miniature by Nathaniel Hone the elder in 1750. He was reputedly 93-years old and was paid one shilling per hour for his services to the artist, ‘which he asserted he always got by his profession of begging’.

James Turner by Nathaniel Hone the elder (inscribed James Turner a beggar aged 93 who valued his time at a shilling an hour, 1750). Adam’s.

Anglesey Abbey, a National Trust property in Cambridgeshire holds a miniature of an unknown man which is catalogued as possibly being an earlier miniature of James Turner by Nathaniel Hone.

An Unknown Man, possibly James Turner (b.1657) by Nathaniel Hone the elder. Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire

After James, Hone and his great rival Sir Joshua Reynolds both used another beggar in their work, George White. Reynolds used him as the thirteenth-century Italian nobleman, Count Ugolino (featured in Dante’s Divine Comedy) in his 1773 depiction of the count and his children, starved to death.

Count Ugolino and His Children in the Dungeon by Joshua Reynolds; National Trust, Knole

George White, a Yorkshireman, became one of Reynold’s favourite models. He was discovered by the artist while working as a casual labourer, laying paving stones.

Old George… owed the case in which he passed his latter days, in great measure to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who found him exerting himself in the laborious employment of thumping down the stones in the street; and observing not only the grand and majestic traits of his countenance, but the dignity of his muscular figure, took him out of a situation to which his strength was by no means equal, clothed, fed, and had him, first as a model in his own painting room, then introduced him as a subject for the students of the Royal Academy.

In winter White would return to Yorkshire as ‘coals be cheap in the north, and warmth be the life of an old man’.

A Man’s Head c.1771-3 by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Presented by Sir George Beaumont Bt 1826. Tate

George White also appears in a portrait named Pope Pavarius (a pun on White’s former profession as a street mender or paviour) by Joshua Reynolds.

Pope Pavarius by Joshua Reynolds, via Wikimedia.

Nathaniel Hone too used White in his painting, The Pictorial Conjurer displaying the Whole Art of Optical Deception.

Portraits, memoirs, and characters, of remarkable persons (1820) – which does admittedly mix up James Turner and George White – has this to say of The Conjuror.

Some difference existing between Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr Hone, the latter, in revenge, painted the figure of an old man, with a magic want, conjuring from the flames various designs from old masters, which Sir Joshua had taken for models of some of his best pictures; and had afterwards destroyed the originals. On the death of Mr Hone, in 1784, the whole of his collection of paintings, prints, and drawings, were sold by auction, at Hutchins’ rooms, in King-street, Covent-garden, when the picture of the Conjuror was purchased for sixty guineas, by an agent of Sir Joshua’s, and consigned to the same destructive element that had consumed the old masters.

Sketch for ‘The Conjuror’ 1775 by Nathaniel Hone. Tate

Sources not mentioned or linked to above

Lowell Libson Ltd, 2015

Header image

Sir Joshua Reynolds, self-portrait; National Portrait Gallery, London

Fashionable Blues of the 18th century

No-one seems quite sure how the colour blue became associated with the feeling of sadness, some say its origins lay back in Greek mythology whilst others say it has links to the devil. Whatever the true origin, how could anyone possibly feel blue wearing these sumptuous gowns that we’re going to take a look at?

A Lady in Blue 1757 by Arthur Devis. Tate

So many shades of blue exist, from the palest baby blue to darkest navy blue and everything in-between and the colour was clearly very popular during the Georgian era. Given the amazing array of paintings sadly I only have space to share  few with you, but I do hope you enjoy them.

Portrait of La Comtesse de Beaufort, c, 1760 by Louis Michel van Loo. Gift of the Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Menello and Michael A. Menello, in honor of Rollins College President Rita Bornstein, Cornell Fine Arts Museum.

An interesting point worth noting about these paintings is that to create the impression of fabric required a very specific skill and it seems, not a skill that some of the most famous artists had, so they employed  ‘drapery painters’ to paint the more intricate and detailed aspects of fabrics, to ensure that they looked as natural as possible. One of these, who was regarded as being amongst the best was Joseph Van Aken. Another was Peter Toms who was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy.

Mr James Peters was Kneller’s drapery painter so it seems highly likely that he painted this stunning blue dress.

Sir Godfrey Kneller. Portrait of Mrs Bagnal, Circa 1690 – 1720

I came across this description in The London Tradesman, of exactly what a drapery painter’s role was so thought you might find it interesting.

The drapery painter is but the lowest degree of a liberal painter; he is employed in dressing the figures, after the painter has finished the face, given the figure its proper attitude and drawn the outlines of the dress or drapery.

A portrait painter who is well employed, has not time to cloath his figures, and therefore employs a drapery painter to finish that part of the work.

This workman must have a tolerable notion of painting in general; but his chief skill consists in his knowledge of colours and the mixing of them, to produce proper shades; for the painter generally draws the outline and leave him to fill up the empty space with proper colours.

The drapery painters are generally employed in signpost drawing, and other sorts of painting that do not require a masterly hand: they have commonly but a dull genius and a mere mechanical head: however, those who are eminent in their way and in the employ of a noted master make very handsome bread; they may sometimes earn a guinea a day, and must be mere bunglers if they cannot make half a guinea.

Their education may be as low as you please; but as in all other branches that handle the pencil, they ought to be early acquainted with the use of it: the sooner they are bound apprentices the greater proficiency they may be expected to make. A sober disposition and a sound constitution are absolutely requisite.

unknown artist; Daughter of a 7th Dragoon Guards Officer; The Military Museum of the Royal Dragoon Guards

And the final selection:

Miss Elizabeth Greenway by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Miss Sophia Musters by George Romney; Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery

Margaret Messenger (b.1737), Mrs Walter Strickland by George Romney; National Trust, Sizergh Castle

Romney, George; Ann Verelst (1751-1823) by George Romney; Rotherham Heritage Services

UPDATE

Following a great deal of discussion amongst readers, I thought I would add some of the earliest references to a few shades of blue that I have come across in the newspapers.

Navy Blue 

Mr. Sainsbury’s liveries were a deep navy blue, with silver lace and epulets…

Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 7 October 1780

A slight variation on the term appeared in the London Chronicle, 16-18 August 1781.

His Majesty and the Prince of Wales, with Sir Hugh Palliser and Lord Sandwich, were dressed in a naval blue, with narrow gold lace.

Turquoise

The Parisian fashion report for  June 1779 confirms for the existence of the colour turquoise in clothing.

CHEMISE A LA CIRCE

The waist is marked with three gathers, surmounted with an Algerine girdle. The front is in Turkish style, and the body is ornamented from top to bottom. It has a very coquettish appearance. The materials generally used for these dresses are Le Pekin’ des trois raisons, summer taffetas, Chinese corisandre, striped turquoise, white crape, muslin, embroidered, worked and plain. Linen, Florence, plain, painted. &c.

Evening Mail, 26-28 June 1799

Saxon Blue

A Grant has pass’d the Great Seal unto George Spence of Southwark, Dyer; Charles Lathbury of London, Warehouseman; and John Christopher Wagnelin of London, Merchant; of their new-invented Art of Dying Green and Blue Saxon Colours, to them and their Heirs for 14 Years.

General Evening Post, 13-16 August 1748

Royal Blue

It is said to have been created by millers in Rode, Somerset, a consortium of which won a competition to make a dress for Queen Charlotte, consort of King George III. The article does not, however, give a specific date for this, but I did manage to find this article below confirming the existence of such a colour by 1782.

Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, 23 April 1782.

NEW-INVENTED PATENT SPRING HATS, and SCOTCH BONNETS.

HENRY HARDY, at the King’s-Arms, No. 7, in the Old Bailey, respectfully acquaints the Public, that he has, with much pains, labor, and expence, invented a neat, light, and elegant covering for Ladies Hats and Scotch Bonnets… and adapted to the colours which are at present much the mode: among other colours are the royal blue, the green, pink, the Emperor’s eye, straw, &c…

 

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Miss Taylor by Joseph Highmore (1692-1780) Courtesy of Manchester Art Gallery

Thomas Bewick’s snowman

Here in Lincolnshire in the English Midlands, we’re yet to see any real snow this winter and it’s beginning to look a little unlikely now. Certainly, we have not yet been able to build a snowman so, while we wait for a good snowfall, today we’re going to take a closer look at an engraving of a snowman built by a young boy and his friends in the eighteenth-century.

Thomas Bewick, wood engraver and natural history author, was born in 1753 in the village of Mickley in Northumberland, in a cottage known as Cherryburn. With a talent for drawing, young Thomas was apprenticed at the age of fourteen years to Ralph Beilby, a Newcastle engraver, later becoming a partner in his business.

Thomas Bewick in later life, painted by Thomas Sword Good, 1827. The Natural History Society of Northumbria Great North Museum: Hancock

The following two vignettes supposedly show Thomas Bewick as a child, building a giant snowman at Cherryburn. Bewick is the boy standing on the stool, putting the finishing touches to the snowman, while his childhood friend, Joe Liddell, stands behind him, shivering and with his arms crossed.

© The Trustees of the British Museum

 

© The Trustees of the British Museum

The cottage shown in the background is Cherryburn and, in the latter image, Bewick’s bedroom window, which was next to his bedhead, is visible to the right of the horse’s head. The image appeared as a tailpiece woodcut engraving at the end of British Birds, 1797. Another tailpiece in the book shows Joe Liddell out hunting in the snow.

© The Trustees of the British Museum

Cherryburn is now owned by the National Trust. For more information on Thomas Bewick, his life and works, see The Bewick Society.

 

Sources not mentioned above:

Berwick Gleanings by Julia Boyd (1886)

Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick by Jenny Uglow (Faber & Faber, 2011)

 

Header image:

Cherryburn.

Thomas Bewick’s childhood cottage and farmhouse on a hillside, with a fence at left, seen from an orchard; frontispiece to ‘A Memoir of Thomas Bewick’ (London, 1862). © The Trustees of the British Museum

The many faces of George III’s wife, Queen Charlotte

With so much interest in the Royal Collection’s Georgian Papers Project,  we thought we would examine some of the portraits of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who was also patron of the arts. We took a brief look some time ago at some of the portraits of George III’s children, so other portraits of the Queen with her children can be found by following this link.

As you would imagine, both the King and Queen were painted by many of the leading artists of the day so we’ll take a look at just a few of them.

We begin with a miniature of Queen Charlotte by the artist Jeremiah Meyer, who was appointed miniature painter to her majesty.

Meyer, Jeremiah; Profile of Queen Charlotte (1744-1818); York Museums Trust

Our next portrait is attributed to Johann Zoffany, 1766. According to John Zoffany, His Life and Works by Lady Victoria Manners and Dr. G C Williamson:

Unfortunately for our artist he was addicted to the practical joke of introducing into his groups ‘without the permission of the original and often in unflattering guise‘ the representations of living persons with whom he had quarrelled or against whom he had  grievance. He is said to have scandalised the English Court by sketching out and showing to his friends a bold replica of his ‘Life School’ in which he had introduced a portrait of Queen Charlotte before she was married and had placed it opposite to the figure of one of her former admirers in Germany.

As Zoffany’ s Life School wasn’t painted until after this portrait of Queen Charlotte, it rather begs the question as to what she had done to upset him – perhaps she didn’t think he had captured her likeness in this portrait! We will probably never know.

Queen Charlotte (1744–1818) Johann Zoffany (1733–1810) (attributed to) The Holburne Museum

In 1789 Queen Charlotte sat for the artist Thomas Lawrence but, according to the National Gallery,  apparently unwillingly, having recently undergone the shock of George III’s first attack of apparent insanity. The pearl bracelets on Queen Charlotte’s wrists were part of the king’s wedding gift to her; one clasp contains his portrait miniature, the other his royal monogram. Although Lawrence’s portrait was considered to be very like Queen Charlotte, it failed to please the king and queen and remained in the artist’s possession

Lawrence, Thomas; Queen Charlotte; The National Gallery, London

This next painting is by one of the monarch’s favourite artists, William Beechey. In the biography of William Beechey R.A. written by W. Roberts in 1909, he notes that in 1793 Beechey painted a full-length portrait of Queen Charlotte, the Queen, in turn, honoured him by the appointment of Her Majesty’s Portrait Painter.

Beechey, William; Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818); National Trust, Upton House

Interestingly, there is another copy of this portrait at the Courtauld Gallery, dated somewhat later – 1812 – and with slightly different dimensions.

Beechey, William; Queen Charlotte; The Courtauld Gallery

Probably one of the most well-known portraits of her is the one by Allan Ramsay.

Ramsay, Allan; Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of George III

 

Reynolds, Joshua; Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818), Queen Consort of King George III; Government Art Collection

And finally, a portrait after Thomas Gainsborough.

Gainsborough, Thomas; Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818); National Trust, Wimpole Hall

Featured Image:

Queen Charlotte (1744-1818) with her Two Eldest Sons c.1765, Royal Collection Trust.

Art Detectives: The Family of Captain RD Pritchard

We came across a painting on the ArtUK website, simply titled The Children of Captain RD Prichard and dated 1827; the artist is Philip August Gaugain (1791-1865). It captured our attention and so we decided to turn art detectives and find out a little more on the history behind the portrait. As a result, we can now put names to the two children and provide a little more information on Captain Pritchard.

The Children of Captain R. D. Pritchard (1827) by Philip August Gaugain (1791–1865)
Walker Art Gallery

Their father was Captain Richard Davison Pritchard of the Royal Navy. Born on the 30^th May 1788 to Samuel Perkins and Ruth Ann Pritchard, he was baptised at St Mary, Newington on the 19^th June. Richard’s father was a naval man and, following in his father’s footsteps at a very tender age, he joined the navy as a Volunteer 1^st Class on the 10^th August 1797, serving on board HMS Prince and rising to the rank of Midshipman by 1799. Service on HMS George and Blenheim followed before he joined HMS Royal Sovereign, the ship on which he would serve, as Master’s Mate, during the Battle of Trafalgar which took place on 21^st October 1805.

The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)
Tate Britain

Richard Davison Pritchard subsequently served on many royal naval vessels, seeing action and receiving wounds, He was twice discharged from his ship; in 1808 from HMS Terrible upon which he had the rank of Acting Lieutenant he was ‘invalided and unserviceable’ and the following year he joined HMS Avenger as a Lieutenant but was discharged ‘invalided’ at the end of 1809.

At 22 years of age, he married Mary Ann Davis, on the 3^rd July 1810, at the church of St Andrew by the Wardrobe. Interestingly, banns had been read at St Clement Danes for three weeks from the 31^st December 1809, but no wedding had taken place there. Did Mary Ann’s family object to her marriage to an out-of-employ naval officer? She was mentioned in the Naval Chronicle as being the only daughter of the late John Davis of Binfield, Berkshire.

Their son, the boy in the portrait, similarly named to his father as Richard Davis Pritchard, was born in the following year, at Langley near Windsor and then there was a gap of 10 years before their daughter Rosanne Mary Pritchard was born, on the 5^th February 1821 at the Bank House in Southampton. Rosanne Mary was baptized on the 4^th March 1821 at Holyrood, Southampton.

Oxford Journal, 11th May 1811

During these years, Pritchard had served in the Transport service between November 1813 and August 1819, attaining the rank of Captain by which he is denoted in his children’s portrait, before embarking on something of a different career path. Rosanne Mary’s birthplace, Bank House, gives a clue. In partnership with a man named John Kellow, Pritchard had gone into business at Southampton as a banker and trader, continuing in this vein until the partnership was dissolved on the 30^th December 1827.

Old Boat House, West Quay, Southampton by an unknown artist
Southampton City Art Gallery

It was in the same year that Pritchard’s banking business came to an end that his two children were painted by Gaugain, when they were aged 16 and 6 years. Gaugain also painted the portrait of a Captain Pritchard and a Mary Ann Pritchard three years earlier, and surely these must be their parents, Richard Davison and Mary Ann Pritchard.

Captain Pritchard by Philip August Gaugain (1791–1865)
Southampton City Museums

The portraits of Captain and Mary Ann Pritchard are held by Southampton City Museums and the portrait of their children by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Mary Ann Pritchard by Philip August Gaugain (1791–1865)
Southampton City Museums

In later life Captain Richard Davison Pritchard returned to his former profession, serving on HMS Meteor and Avon as Lieutenant Commander from February 1838 to September 1841, before he gave up the sea for good. The home to which he retired was Keydell House, an ‘uncommonly pretty cottage villa’ at Horndean in Hampshire.

Keydell House via horndean.net

It is altogether a little snuggery, in a valley of extraordinary beauty. The house stands or rather nestles under the shadow of the hill, on a lawn resplendent in flowers and American plants, looking around its domain without a feeling of envy for any spot in England. It is, in fact,

A BIJOU on a PETITE SCALE…

Perhaps it was his wife’s illness which had prompted the end of his naval service, for Mary Ann Prichard died at Keydell House on the 12^th March 1842, leaving her husband inconsolable. She was buried in the churchyard at the nearby village of Catherington a week later. Pritchard put Keydell House up for sale.

DEATHS. On the 12th inst., at Keydell, Horn Dean, Hants, after a long illness borne with the most exemplary Christian patience, MARY ANN, the beloved wife of Capt. R.D. PRITCHARD, R.N., aged 54 years. Her loss will be long and deeply deplored by her afflicted husband and family, and also by a large circle of friends to whom she was endeared by her amiable and affectionate disposition and many virtues. In the circle of her private life, she exhibited a useful example of simple and warm piety, and of that meekness, quietness, and easy seriousness of deportment, which so well become the Christian woman.

Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 21 March 1842

The following year Captain Pritchard was living at Hampton Grove in Surbiton, Surrey, although he died at Fareham in Hampshire on the 4^th January 1849. He was buried five days later at Catherington near to his former home, Keydell House, and alongside his beloved wife.

Catherington Church
© Copyright David Martin and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

So, what of the two children in the portrait? Rosanne Mary married the Reverend Thomas Pyne, incumbent of Hook near Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, at Wonston in Hampshire on the 8^th October 1850. It was fated to be but a short marriage for Rosanne Mary died on Valentine’s Day 1853, at Surbiton. Her obituary named her as the ‘only surviving child’ of the late R.D. Pritchard Esq, so her elder brother had predeceased her. He was alive when his father wrote his last will and testament, on the 16th December 1843. In that will Captain Pritchard left everything to his daughter Rosanne Mary, stressing that it was not for want of affection for his son that he had done so, but simply because his son had been amply provided for already in ‘bringing him up to his present profession’. Possibly he is the Richard Davis Pritchard who was appointed as a surgeon by the Royal Navy in 1833.

On the 14th inst., at Surbiton, aged 32, Rosanne Mary, the beloved wife of the Rev. Thomas Pyne, M.A., incumbent of Hook, Surrey, and only surviving child of the late R.D. Pritchard, Esq., Captain in the Royal Navy.

Morning Advertiser, 18th February 1853

 

Sources used not referenced or linked to above:

Trafalgar Ancestors, National Archives

Will of Richard Davison Pritchard, PROB 11/2807/24, National Archives

The Naval Chronicle, Containing a General and Biographical History of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, with a Variety of Original Papers on Nautical Subjects, Volume 24

Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 8^th January 1827

Globe newspaper, 15^th May 1843

Johan Zoffany – questions about his life

In one of our previous blogs we took a look at the famous painting by Johan Zoffany, ‘Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match’.  His name cropped again in our research so we thought we’d find out more about the man and his family and came across this book online, which would definitely recommend – John Zoffany, R. A., his life and works. 1735-1810 by Lady Victoria Manners and G.C Williamson.

Johan Zoffany – Self-portrait 1761

His life and his works appear to be have been very well documented but, in brief, Zoffany was born in Germany, moved to London and married twice. His first wife, Anthonie Theophista Juliane Eiselein, whom he married in the late 1750s, left him at some stage to return to Germany and died shortly after, after which he married for the second time and the couple had 4 daughters. He died 11 November 1810.

So that’s the basic facts of his life in a nutshell … but needless to say we have come across a few anomalies for which we have no answers, perhaps our readers can offer some help.

Everywhere we’ve looked states that he was born on 13 March 1733 near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and baptized on 15 March at St Bartholomew’s Cathedral (including the ODNB). If you ‘do the maths’ on this, he would have been aged 77 when he died.

So who got it wrong? The entry in the burial register, although a faint copy, quite clearly records his age at the end of the line as 87, a full 10 years older than stated everywhere, added to this, his gravestone also gives his age as 87.

Zoffany burial in the register of St Anns Richmond upon Thames

We are unsure why no-one has ever questioned this. We know it is quite common for entries to be a year or so out, but it’s very unusual for them to be a whole 10 years out – so someone got it wrong, was it his wife who arranged for the tomb to be erected, did she simply get it wrong or was it historians, who over the years just assumed that what they had read about his date of birth was correct without checking any further?

Self-Portrait with His Daughter Maria Theresa, James Cervetto, and Giacobbe Cervetto, c.1780 Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

In 1769 he was admitted to the Royal Academy and lived at 43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

He had 4 daughters, all four of whom he mentions in his will – Maria Theresa Louisa who was born on 4^th April 1777, but who was not baptised until 1801.

Cecilia Clementina Elizabeth (baptised  10th December 1780) at St George’s Hanover Square.

Westminster Church of England Parish Registers; Reference: STG/PR/2/4

Claudina Sophia Ann, (no sign of her baptism, but census returns confirm that she was born c1793) and finally Laura Helen Constantia who was reputed to have been born 1795 (RIP July 11 1876), making Johan quite elderly when she was born (62 or 72).

The strangest thing of all though is, despite his 4 daughters, his marriage to Mary Thomas, didn’t take place until 20^th April 1805 making him either 72 or 82 at the time. He was reputed to have married Mary in Florence c1771/72 and it is said that they had a son whilst living there. However, Mary married as a spinster in 1805 so either the Italian wedding was not legal in England, or no marriage had previously taken place.

St Pancras parish church. London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P90/PAN1/056

It begs the question as to why he left it so late. It can’t have been an attempt to legitimise his daughters before they were of an age to marry, as the two eldest, Maria and Cecilia, were married 1801 and 1799 respectively. Perhaps it was to give his wife security for when he died given that she was some considerable years younger than her husband? Mary died in 1832, aged 77.

We end this post with more questions than answers, perhaps someone in the future will be able to solve this mystery, so in the meantime, we will continue to enjoy his works.

The Academicians of the Royal Academy 1771-72 Courtesy of The Royal Collection

Portrait of Ann Brown in the Role of Miranda (c. 1770)

The Garden at Hampton House, with Mr and Mrs David Garrick taking tea, 1763

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The Tribuna of the Uffizi  1772-77 Courtesy of the Royal Collection

Women in Music and Art in the Georgian Era

Needless to say in the 18^th century women were regarded as being of lower status than their male counterparts, this was especially noticeable in music. How many well-known female composers of the 18^th century have you heard of – not many, if any for a guess! Many women were however expected to study music and to be accomplished at playing an instrument or singing, merely as a form of entertainment for their family and friends. This went hand in hand with being the perfect hostess.

Adolphe, Joseph Anton; Caroline D’Arcy (d.1778), 4th Marchioness of Lothian; National Galleries of Scotland

In this post we thought we would take a look at how art captured women playing a musical instrument, whether these women were actually able to play theses instruments we have no idea, maybe they were simply used as props in the paintings.  One of the most popular instruments for a woman to become accomplished at playing was the harpsichord and so we begin with Anastasia Robinson, mistress of the 3^rd Earl of Peterborough followed by A Girl at a Harpsichord 1782 attributed to Mather Brown.

Anastasia Robinson c.1727 via Wikimedia

A Girl at a Harpsichord by Mather Brown (attributed to), 1782
(c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

The harp was also immensely popular as we can see here in the painting by Joshua Reynolds, who captured  the Countess of Eglinton playing it, then we have  A Young Lady Playing the Harp  by James Northcote.

The Countess of Eglinton, 1777 by Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723-92)
Private Collection © Agnew’s, London
English, out of copyright

A Young Lady Playing the Harp by James Northcote, exhibited 1814
(c) Tate; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Lady Frances Seymour Conway (1751–1820), Countess of Lincoln by William Hoare
(c) The University of Nottingham; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Sarah Curran (1782–1808), Playing the Harp by William Beechey
(c) Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

The guitar was also a popular instrument for women to play as we can see in these next paintings.

A young Woman playing the Guitar with a Songbird on her Hand by Louis-Léopold Boilly
(c) The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Artist Painting a Portrait of a Musician, Marguerite Gerard, Before 1803 courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum

And finally, an all female quartet.

The Sense of Hearing, Philippe Mercier. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

But the post would not be complete without Gillray’s take on an old woman playing the harpsichord now would it!

A closer look at Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match

Today we are going to have a look at a painting (and its copies) which features Grace Dalrymple Elliott’s cousin, Colonel John Mordaunt.

John Mordaunt was one of the illegitimate sons born to Grace’s aunt Robinaiana Brown when she was the mistress of Charles Mordaunt, 4^th Earl of Peterborough. The couple later married, as soon as his first wife had conveniently breathed her last, and managed a legitimate son and heir, Charles Henry who became, in time, the 5^th and last Earl of Peterborough.

The elder sons were packed off to India to make their fortunes.

John Mordaunt (Jack to his friends) became a favourite at the court of the Asaf-ud-Daula, Nawab of Oudh in Lucknow, where the two men shared a love for the sport of cock-fighting, a brutal and barbaric activity; John had several gamecocks imported from England for this purpose. And so Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match shows a scene from the Nawab’s court with the two men engaged in this activity. Painted by Johan Zoffany c.1784-86 during his time in India, it was commissioned by Warren Hastings shortly before he resigned as the Governor-General of India. Hastings is not present in the picture but he was in attendance at John Mordaunt’s cockfight on the 5^th April 1784, on which this painting is probably based. It is now held in the Tate in London.

Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match c.1784-6 by Johan Zoffany 1733-1810.
© The Tate

Jack Mordaunt was an easy-going and charming fellow, quite the male counterpart to his cousin Grace. He was in charge of the Nawab’s bodyguards and at the head of all the amusements of the court.

So, let’s have a closer look at some of the people in the people in the painting.

In the centre, we have Jack Mordaunt, dressed in white and holding out his hands in front of him. Asaf-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Oudh, is gesturing towards Mordaunt. In front of them are their two Cockfighters, Mordaunt’s wearing the red turban and the Nawab’s the white turban. Johan Zoffany placed himself in the painting at the far right-hand side (seated, dressed in white and holding a pencil or paintbrush, presumably to sketch the scene unfolding around him) and behind him with a hand on his shoulder is his friend Mr Ozias Humphry R.A.  Next to them, wearing a blue jacket and sitting, holding a hookah, is John Wombwell, an accountant. The man wearing a red coat and standing under the red canopy is Colonel Antoine Louis Polier (a Swiss soldier) and the gentleman seated on the white divan wearing a red military jacket is the Frenchman Colonel Claude Martin. He is talking to Trevor Wheeler who is holding his own gamecock.

In the bottom right-hand corner we find Mr Robert Gregory with a white gamecock in his hands (his father disinherited him for cock-fighting, reputedly after seeing an engraving of this painting after he had warned his son of the consequences if he continued to gamble on such fights). The rather plump Lieutenant W. Golding is sitting with his own gamecock and on the floor next to him, holding an empty box is Mr Gregory’s Cockfighter.

Nawab of Oudh, Asaf-ud-Daula, Lucknow, India, c.1785-90 by a local artist after Zoffany (via Wikimedia)

Further details were later revealed. From the Tate’s information on the painting:

After its acquisition by the Tate the painting was cleaned, revealing new subtleties of colour, detail and meaning. The Nawab’s state of sexual arousal, his agitated pose and inclination towards his chief minister and favourite bodyguard Hassan Resa Khan (in the ornate red turban), add an erotic dimension to the nature of the cock fight. The vignette just behind the Nawab shows a bearded Hindu (in turban) fondling a Moslem boy catamite (in the white cap worn by Moslem men), to the outrage of the man in the red turban who must be restrained by a courtier. Lewis Ferdinand Smith recounted that the Nawab ‘has many adopted children, but none of his own’ – despite a harem of 500 beauties – and that towards his wife of sixteen years ‘he has never fulfilled the duties of a husband’ (quoted in Archer, p.144). This painting was perhaps Hastings’s select joke, a memento of his time in India.

Detail from the Tate copy.

One version of this painting was presented to the Nawab (presumably omitting the extra details above) and one to Hastings. Unfortunately, the ship in which it was later travelling on its homeward journey to England was lost at sea (Hastings was luckily on another ship) and so Zoffany painted a second version for him, the one pictured above. The Nawab’s copy was lost in the rebellion of 1857 (and is presumed destroyed) but a slightly different version, with fewer people in it, was given by the Nawab’s successor Ghazi-ud-din Haider to Richard Strachey who was the British Resident at Lucknow from 1815 to 1817. This copy, known as the Ashwick version and also painted by Zoffany, is still in a private collection.

The Ashwick version, from John Zoffany R.A., his Life and Works, 1735-1810.

Three further versions are in existence, all however painted much later than the original. One is an Indian version of the painting, c.1840 and possibly commissioned by John Elliot, the son of the 1^st Earl of Minto who was Governor-General in India in the early nineteenth century. This painting was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in 2014. Interestingly, the 1^st Earl of Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, was a contemporary of Colonel John Mordaunt’s and would more than likely have been aware of his Scottish ancestry. Sir Gilbert’s wife descended from the same Dalrymple family as Grace, and his sons were educated by the Scottish historian David Hume who was certainly aware of the Brown’s of Blackburn in Berwickshire from which both Jack Mordaunt and Grace were descended on their respective mothers’ side.

Colonel Mordaunt and Nawab Asaf al-Daula of Avadh at a Cock Fight, Company School, Patna, circa 1840, after Richard Earlom’s mezzotint of Zoffany’s ‘Col. Mordaunt’s Cock Match’, via Sotheby’s website.

An Indian artist in Lucknow, c.1800, made a reasonably faithful copy of Zoffany’s original. This is now in the Harvard Art Museum.

© President and Fellows of Harvard College
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Gift of Edith I. Welch in memory of Stuart Cary Welch

Lastly, a version which was again painted by a Lucknow artist, c.1830-35 and held by the British Library.

Painting of Asaf al-Daula (the Nawab of Awadh 1775-97) at a cock-fight, by a Lucknow artist, c. 1830-35.
© The British Library

We can’t conclude this without pointing out the similarity in appearance between Colonel John Mordaunt and his cousin Grace Dalrymple Elliott. Both were tall and slender, and we think we can see a distinct likeness in the profiles of their two faces. Do our readers agree?

You can find out more about Grace’s life and adventures and Colonel John Mordaunt and his time in India in our book.

A closer look at Thomas Gainsborough’s full-length portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott

In our biography of the eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott, we tell her story more completely than ever before whilst also shedding light on her siblings and maternal family who were central to her experiences. Containing many rarely seen images relating to Grace and her family and a wealth of new information, An Infamous Mistress: The Life, Loves and Family of the Celebrated Grace Dalrymple Elliott is available as a hardback or e-book from Pen and Sword Books and all good bookshops, worldwide.

Today we are going to have a closer look at a fabulous portrait of Grace, who had her likeness painted twice by Thomas Gainsborough. The first was a full-length, probably commissioned by her lover the Earl of Cholmondeley in 1777 and which hung in his London mansion at Piccadilly. When the portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in Pall Mall during 1778 the General Evening Post newspaper called it a ‘striking and beautiful likeness’ of Grace, quoting some lines from The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope.

If to her share some female errors fall,

Look on her face, and you’ll forget them all.

Sadly for Grace, the picture proved to have a longer life in the earl’s household than she did; when he refused to marry the divorced Mrs Elliott she upped sticks for France and the Anglophile Duke of Orléans. Reputedly, the portrait was viewed, a few years later, by Cholmondeley’s boon companion, George, Prince of Wales, and he admired both the painting and its subject so much that Cholmondeley was despatched across the Channel to fetch Grace back home from the arms of her French duke and to deliver her into those of a British prince. The portrait is now held in New York, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mrs Grace Dalrymple Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Over the years the portrait’s condition meant that certain details had been lost, but these can be seen on an engraving made of it in 1779 by John Dean (or Deane, c.1754-1798, draughtsman and engraver (mezzotint)). On his engraving can be seen a flagstone floor and a burst of light coming over the trees in the background.

During treatment of Gainsborough’s portrait of Grace, dark paint was visible under the sky suggesting that the picture may originally have been intended to be much narrower, possibly without the landscape in the background.

The left hand of the 1779 engraving and Gainsborough’s portrait, side-by-side.

An additional revelation also came about during the Met’s treatment of the portrait – the presence of a small dog which was once in the lower right-hand corner was also revealed.^[i]

Bottom right-hand corner of the Gainsborough portrait – can you see an impression of a dog?

And here is the 1779 John Dean engraving of ‘Mrs Elliot’ courtesy of the Yale Centre for British Art.

John Dean, 1754–1798, British, Mrs. Elliot, 1779, Mezzotint, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund

Notes:

[i] British Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575-1875, by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Katharine Baetjer, 2009.

Divorced wife, infamous mistress, prisoner during the French Revolution and the reputed mother of the Prince of Wales’ child, notorious courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott lived an amazing life in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London and Paris. Strikingly tall and beautiful, later lampooned as ‘Dally the Tall’ in newspaper gossip columns, she left her Scottish roots and convent education behind, to re-invent herself in a ‘marriage a-la-mode’, but before she was even legally an adult she was cast off and forced to survive on just her beauty and wits. The authors of this engaging and, at times, scandalous book intersperse the story of Grace’s tumultuous life with anecdotes of her fascinating family, from those who knew Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and who helped to abolish slavery, to those who were, like Grace, mistresses of great men. Whilst this book is the most definitive biography of Grace Dalrymple Elliott ever written, it is much more than that; it is Grace’s family history which traces her ancestors from their origin in the Scottish borders, to their move south to London. It follows them to France, America, India, Africa and elsewhere, offering a broad insight into the social history of the Georgian era, comprising the ups and downs, the highs and lows of life at that time. This is the remarkable and detailed story of Grace set, for the first time, in the context of her wider family and told more completely than ever before.

The Newcastle Eccentrics of Hell’s Kitchen

Eccentric Characters of Newcastle by Henry Perlee Parker (after)
(c) Laing Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

In the taproom of The Flying Horse public house in the Groat Market, colloquially known as Hell’s Kitchen, various of the Newcastle Upon Tyne ‘Eccentrics’ were to be seen, many of them mentioned in popular local ballads and folk-songs. They were well known on the Newcastle streets and on the quayside, and in the ale-houses. Fourteen of them were painted by the artist Henry Perlee Parker around 1817, shown in Hell’s Kitchen, immortalising their images. The original has been lost, but engravings have survived.

 

Old (or Aud) Judy Dowlings was the keeper of the Newcastle upon Tyne ‘hutch’, a form of strongbox used by the City Treasurer. She was a formidable guard, wielding a hefty stick in its defence and is also depicted in another painting by Henry Perlee Parker. You can read more about Old Judy in one of our previous posts by clicking here. Peering over Old Judy’s shoulder is Jenny Ballo and beside her Whin Bob, or Robert Cruddace. The dog is Timour, belonging to Doodum Daddum.

 

 

 

Next is Jacky Coxon who is mentioned in a song written by Robert Emery (a Scot living in Newcastle) called ‘The Pitman’s Dream – or a description of the North Pole’. The others are Pussy Willy, Cull (or Cully) Billy and Donald. Cully (also known as Silly Billy) was really William Scott and lived in St John’s poorhouse and was the subject of various local folk songs. He lived with his diminutive mother who was only 4ft tall and who made her living as a hawker. Both mother and son were often cruelly ridiculed but Cully was a gentle man with a good nature and a quick sense of humour. He died in the poorhouse on the 31^st July 1831 at the age of 68 years. Donald, obviously a Scotsman from his tartan tam o’shanter, also revelled in the name Lousy Donald.

The four gentleman here are Bugle-Nosed Jack, Hangy (or Hangie), Bold Archy (or Airchy) and Blind Willie. Bugle-Nosed Jack was also known as Cuckoo Jack and Bold Archy was really Archibald Henderson, a huge, well-built man but absolutely a gentle giant, devoted to his mother who often had to lead him away from fights as he was a magnet for trouble due to his size. He died, on the 14^th May 1828, at the age of 86 years. Blind Willie, or William Purvis, was probably the best known of the Newcastle Eccentrics. Born in Newcastle, and baptised at All Saints’ Church on the 16^th February 1752, his father John was a waterman and his mother Margaret lived to a grand old age, dying in All Saints poorhouse at well over 100 years of age. Blind Willie (blind from birth or from very early in his childhood) was a fiddler, song writer and performer, often to be found in ale houses where he asked for a drink and entertained the regulars. He was a great favourite on the streets of Newcastle, renowned for never wearing a hat, no matter what the weather, having got fed up of it being stolen from his head by idle boys. Like his mother, he ended up in the All Saints poorhouse where he died on the 20^th July 1832 aged 80.

Finally, we have Shoe-tie Anty, ‘Captain’ Benjamin Starkey and Doodem Daddum, owner of Timour the dog. Benjamin Starkey, extremely short in stature, had pretensions to grandeur, hence his appellation of ‘Captain’, and certainly had some education as he was noted as a very neat writer. In his youth he had been an usher at a school, William Bird’s Academy in Fetter’s Lane in Holborn, London (where the essayist Charles Lamb remembered him from). He was born around 1757 and died on the 9^th July 1822, and was an inmate of both Freeman’s Hospital and the poorhouse. Doodum Daddem is identified as John Higgins in an eprint from Nottingham University, a jack-of-all-trades and also the Town Crier or Bellman of Newcastle Upon Tyne. However, from census records, John Higgins would appear to be too young to be the man in the painting.

Woodcuts of Blind Willie and ‘Captain’ Benjamin Starkey appear in Allan’s Illustrated Version of Tyneside Songs, in which many of the Newcastle Eccentrics are named. It also provides an engraving of the Hell’s Kitchen portrait with a key underneath to the identities of the people within it.

Blind Willie (Newcastle Libraries via Flickr)

 

Sources:

Newcastle Courant, 28^th July 1832

Allan’s Illustrated Edition of Tyneside Songs, 1891

Header image:

Street Scene, Newcastle upon Tyne; British School; National Trust, Cragside

Does this chalk drawing depict Grace Dalrymple Elliott?

Unidentified lady, thought to be Grace Dalrymple Elliott by John Hoppner, British Museum.

A chalk drawing dating to around 1782 by John Hoppner, whilst unproven, is reputed to depict the celebrated courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott.  If there is a corresponding portrait it has yet to be discovered.  There certainly does look to be a good similarity between the Gainsborough portraits of her and, if it is Grace, it dates from the time of her pregnancy with the reputed child of George, Prince of Wales (and the end of her relationship with her royal lover).  The lady in the portrait is wearing a chemise à la reine, a diaphanous white muslin gown made popular in France by Queen Marie Antionette and in 1782 the latest fashion.  Grace was one of the first women in London to appear dressed in one of these gowns, along with Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire and the Prince’s former mistress, the actress and courtesan Mary Robinson (Perdita).

Mrs Mary Robinson (1758–1800), as ‘Perdita’ by John Hoppner, c.1782.
(c) Chawton House Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Hoppner was connected with the Court, having been encouraged to paint by George III and eventually becoming Principal Portrait Painter to the Prince of Wales in 1793 after the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds.  Is it just possible that this chalk drawing is Grace, sitting for a portrait commissioned by the Prince and that nothing more than a preliminary sketch was produced following the rupture of their union? What do our readers think?

Grace Dalrymple Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough.
The Frick, New York.

You can read more about Grace in our book, An Infamous Mistress: The Life, Loves and Family of the celebrated Grace Dalrymple Elliott, which is the product of many years of research into her life and which is available now in the UK, published by Pen and Sword Books. Containing much information that is new to Grace’s story, and some rarely seen illustrations and pictures too, our book is also a broad insight into the social history of the Georgian era, interspersed with the fascinating lives her family led across the globe. It is both the story of Grace’s life and her family history.

Divorced wife, infamous mistress, prisoner in France during the French Revolution and the reputed mother of the Prince of Wales’ child, notorious eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott lived an amazing life in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London and Paris.

Strikingly tall and beautiful, later lampooned as ‘Dally the Tall’ in newspaper gossip columns, she left her Scottish roots and convent education behind, to re-invent herself in a ‘marriage-a-la-mode’, but before she was even legally an adult she was cast off and forced to survive on just her beauty and wits.

The authors of this engaging and, at times, scandalous book intersperse the history of Grace’s tumultuous life with anecdotes of her fascinating family, from those who knew Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and who helped to abolish slavery, to those who were, like Grace, mistresses of great men.

Whilst this book is the most definitive biography of Grace Dalrymple Elliott ever written, it is much more than that; it is Grace’s family history which traces her ancestors from their origin in the Scottish borders, to their move south to London. It follows them to France, America, India, Africa and elsewhere, offering a broad insight into the social history of the Georgian era, comprising the ups and downs, the highs and lows of life at that time.

This is the remarkable and detailed story of Grace set, for the first time, in the context of her wider family and told more completely than ever before.

 

Sources:

British Museum

 

Old Judy – keeper of the Newcastle upon Tyne town hutch

We loved this portrait of ‘Old Judy’, keeper of the Newcastle upon Tyne town hutch, and thought we’d take a closer look at both the hutch and Old Judy for our latest blog.

Judy Dowling, Keeper of the Town Hutch by Henry Perlee Parker, c.1815-1820
(c) Laing Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

The ‘town hutch’ was a strongbox, a sturdy wooden chest located in the Guildhall (also known as The Exchange) in which the Corporation officials kept the money the town paid in their dues (the Newcastle upon Tyne one has a hole in the lid to admit the money – a similar idea to the money boxes and piggy banks we all owned as children).

Photograph taken c.1930.
Newcastle Libraries via Flickr.

The Newcastle hutch had eight locks – the Mayor had the key to one and seven chamberlains the others, and the hutch could only be opened in the presence of all the key-holders (or with their explicit consent if they couldn’t be there). But when these illustrious officials were absent, the hutch was guarded by the formidable Old Judy.

The Old Exchange, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear by George Bouchier Richardson (attributed to).
(c) Newcastle Guildhall; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

In the early nineteenth-century Judith Dowlings (also Downey or Downing) was the keeper or guardian of the town hutch and wielded a stout stick, which she was not afraid to use in its defence to keep away anyone she thought should not be near, including unwary boys loitering nearby. A newspaper report written in 1863 quoted the Handbook to Newcastle-on-Tyne by the historian Dr John Collingwood Bruce, which wryly noted that ‘some shoulders still ache at the thought of her’. Presumably that is the same stick which Old Judy has hold of in her portrait.

The Black Gate, Newcastle Upon Tyne by George Balmer (attributed to).
(c) Lady Lever Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

In 1816 the artist Henry Perlee Parker settled in Newcastle upon Tyne (he stayed there until 1841 when he moved to Sheffield) and painted some of the local characters, including Old Judy, people that history would probably otherwise have forgotten all about. Her portrait was executed at some point in the first four years of his residence in Newcastle. We’ll take a look at some of his other paintings in due course – including one in which Old Judy makes another appearance. Both the town hutch and Henry Perlee Parker’s portrait of Old Judy, a half-length in oils on canvas, were moved to the new offices of the Newcastle City Treasurer when the hutch ceased to be used – fittingly Old Judy could gaze down from the wall and keep a watchful eye on the hutch she had so formidably guarded for so many years. Her portrait is now held by the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Henry Perlee Parker by Ralph Hyde Parker.
(c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

As Judy Downey her death is immortalised in a verse of The Newcassel Props by William Oliver. The earliest date we’ve found for this ballad in 1827, which puts Old Judy’s demise prior to that date.

But when maw lugs was lectrified

Wiv Judy Downey’s deeth,

Alang wi’ Heufy Scott aw cried,

Till byeth was out o’ breeth;

For greet and sma, fishwives an’ a’,

Luik’d up tiv her wi’ veneration –

If Judy’s in the Courts above,

Then for au’d Nick there’ll be ne casion.

 

Sources:

Newcastle Courant, 20^th November 1863.

Notes:

Header image: Street Scene, Newcastle upon Tyne; British School; National Trust, Cragside

The Newcastle upon Tyne town hutch can be seen in the Discovery Museum.

Penelope Carwardine (1729 – 1804)

Following our blog about Anne Mee which you seemed to have enjoyed we thought we would take a look at another female artist who specialized in painting miniatures.

According to quite a few sources, Penelope was born around 1730, so just to confirm we will start this post with details of her baptism. She was baptized on 29^th April 1729 at Withington, Hereford, her parents being John and Ann, nee Bullock, of Preston Wynne, Herefordshire.

Her siblings included Anne (Frier), Mary (Wilson), Priscilla (Warricker and Crichton, who died in 1776), Rebecca (Probert) and Henrietta (Pugh). She also had a brother Thomas, a clergyman, but who was also a miniature portrait painter and who married a Miss Anne Holgate in Essex.

© Joanne Major

Until her marriage, somewhat later in life than was the norm at that time, Penelope pursued the genteel pastime of miniature painting which was viewed as a suitable way for women to earn a respectable living, a necessity given that her father had managed to be reckless with the family money, she was a pupil of the artist Ozias Humphry.

The diarist, James Boswell, noted in March 1763 that Alexander 10th Earl of Eglinton was sitting for his miniature to ‘Mrs Carwardine’, who he described as ‘a very good-looking, agreeable woman, unmarried but I imagine virtuous’.  Given the date of her marriage, this must have taken place just prior to it.  Penelope was described as being a close friend of Joshua Reynolds and his sister Frances.  

Lady Anne Sophia Egerton by Penelope Carwardine, c.1765-1770. Ashridge House.

It is reputed that Penelope exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1761, 1762, 1771, and 1772, however, on checking The Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1760-1791; the Free Society of Artists, 1761-1783; a complete dictionary of contributors and their work from the foundation of the societies to 1791, the earlier entries refer to Mrs Thomas (Ann) Carwardine, this seems more likely to actually relate to Penelope’s mother Ann despite the reference to Thomas.

Penelope married James Butler, a church organist at Ranelagh and St Margaret’s and St Anne’s Westminster. The couple were married at St James, Piccadilly, St James the Less, Thorndike Street, 26^th May 1763. Until now there have always been two possible dates for her marriage, many sources saying that she married around 1772, gave up her work at that time and that no miniatures by her after this date are known. The majority of her works are said to have been produced between 1750 and 1765.

Her husband James also taught organ and harpsichord at Mr Dubdat’s on Berwick Street, Soho until his death in 1774. Fortunately for us, James left a will in which he named not only Penelope but also his 4 children from his previous marriage – Elizabeth (1751), Harriott (1755), Thomas Hamley (1756)  and Anthony (1757). He also made provision for Charles Mellish of Blyth, a relative of  Mrs Gooch who we have written about previously.

© Joanne Major

Anne Holgate, wife of Thomas Carwardine, RomneySources also give the date of Penelope’s demise as being 14^th October 1805 at Preston Wynne, Herefordshire (the place of her mother’s birth). However, when checking her last will and testament this cannot be correct as her will was written on the 15^th January 1804 and then proven on the 30^th October 1804. Penelope was, at the time of writing her will living in the village of East Colne, Essex.

However, her death did take place in Herefordshire according to the Monthly Magazine and British Register, Volume 18, Issue 2 and the Bath Chronicle reported her death on the 18th Oct 1804. With the kind help of the Hereford Archives we have managed to establish there was a burial on the 16th October 1804 for a Priscilla Butler, rather than a Penelope, but that her gravestone does record her correctly, so possibly a simple mistake on the part of the vicar who got the sisters mixed up, presumably, let’s hope he named her correctly during the funeral service!

At Hereford, suddenly, Mrs Butler, widow of the late ___ Butler, esq. and daughter of Mr Carwardine, formerly of Preston Wynne. She had passed the evening cheerfully with some friends, when she fell back in her chair, and instantly expired.

(Monthly Magazine & British Register, vol. 18, issue 2)

To be certain that we had found the correct persons will we have noted some of the beneficiaries:-

Her sister Mary Wilson was left a long India shawl, agate snuff box and £10 for mourning. Her cousin Martha Allan – £10 for mourning and £10 annual annuity between Martha and Mary, also her clothes to be divided between them.

Her sister Henrietta Pugh – received £100 with Rebecca Probert getting £10 for mourning. Lucy Crichton received the portrait of her father the late William Crichton Esq. Her sister-in-law, wife of her brother Thomas Carwardine, a gold repeating watch in trust for her daughter Ann Carwardine and £200 in the 4 percents, hoop diamond ring, ring connected with her brother and the long shawl given to her by Claude Benset Esq. To her niece Ann Carwardine she bequeathed diamond earrings. To the poor of the village of Preston Wynne in Withington, Hereford, £5 and her brother Thomas Carwardine received the residue of her estate.

Maria Gunning (later Countess of Coventry) c.1757 by Penelope Carwardine, Wallace Collection.

 

Sources

Anne Gilchrist, her life and writings. edited by Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist, with a prefatory notice by William Michael Rossetti

https://archive.org/details/annegilchristher00gilcuoft

https://archive.org/stream/societyofartists00grav#page/52/mode/2up/search/carwardine

https://archive.org/stream/artcollectionsof00ande_3#page/178/mode/2up/search/carwardine

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NRSK-BRG

The Wallace Collection

Monthly Magazine and British Register, Volume 18, Issue 2

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Tm9AUEJCYQ0C&pg=PA115#v=onepage&q&f=false

George Sanders (1774-1846)

The name George Sanders cropped up during our research so as always we felt compelled to learn a little more about him. Our first port of call being the usual online sources such as DNB.  Sure enough  there he was on the DNB website, George Sanders born 1774, Kinghorn, Fife, son of John Sanders and his wife, Jean, née Bruce, so of course we wanted to check out his details date of birth, siblings etc and anything else we might glean from his baptism.

George Sanders by Andrew Geddes. National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Gallery.

So far so good, this was going to be really straightforward or so we thought, until we realized that we couldn’t immediately find his baptism from the information we had.  After a few minutes we realized that the reason for this being that there was a second George also born in 1774, not in Kinghorn, Fife, but in Keith,Banff, now part of Moray, Scotland.

The George born 1774 at Kinghorn, Fife, with the correct parents, was in fact a George Saunders, not Sanders as shown in the baptism register below.

George Saunders baptized 4th May 1774, Kinghorn, Fife. Parents John Saunders and Jean Bruce

So, this has left us with the dilemma as to which child the artist was, as there is no definitive proof we have included the baptism for George Sanders below. It seems likely that this George Sanders remained in Banff  where he married and had at least one child in 1800, but then he disappeared.

George Sanders born 5th Jan 1774, parents James Sanders and Elizabeth Keith

We checked the 1841 census just to make sure which name was recorded on there and sure enough he was recorded as George Sanders, 25 Allsop Terrace, London then his death which was reported as having taken place on 26th March 1846, according to The Times of  Saturday, 28th March 1846, then his burial (at All Souls, Kensal Green on 31st March and aged 72 years), again buried as Sanders.

And finally his will, and sure enough  … Sanders. Unfortunately in his will there were no family members named only two close friends, shipbuilders of Leith, one of whom was Thomas Menzies, so we can only assume that he had no family remaining when he wrote his will or he that he chosen not to include them.

We have found no mention of George being known as Saunders, he is even included in the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Men of Fife of Past and Present Times by Matthew Forster Connolly (1789-1877), published 1866.

So was he actually the George Saunders of Fife as shown in the first baptism and opted to change his name to Sanders when he moved to England about 1806 or was he actually the George Sanders born in Banff?  We really can’t decide, so if anyone can shed any light on this we would love to hear from you.

George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron (1788-1824) painted c1807-1809 Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Mary Elizabeth Egerton (1782–1846), Lady Sykes (c) National Trust, Tatton Park

Admiral George Keith Elphinstone (1746–1823), 1st Viscount Keith (c) National Maritime Museum

Francis Cotes (20 May 1726 – 19 July 1770)

Paul Sandby 1761 Francis Cotes 1726-1770, Tate

As Francis was born this week in 1726 we thought it would be an ideal opportunity to take a quick look at his life and some of his wonderful paintings. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. The first one looks quite a modern pose in our opinion.

Anna Maria Astley, Aged Seven, and her Brother Edward, Aged Five and a Half 1767 Francis Cotes 1726-1770, Tate

Francis was born in London, the son of an apothecary Robert Cotes and his wife Elizabeth née Lynn, on the 20th May 1726 and then baptized at St Mary-le-Strand on 29th June 1726.

He studied his craft as a pastelist under the watchful eye of the portrait painter George Knapton, after which he established his own business based in his father’s premises in London. As his father was an apothecary Francis learnt about chemistry and was able to use this knowledge to his advantage when making his pastels. Cotes was always regarded as being a serious rival to Gainsborough and Reynolds and was a founder member of the Royal Academy.

Alice, Countess of Shipbrook

In 1762 the Register of Duties paid for Apprentices show that Francis took on a new trainee, one John Russell  (1745-1806)  who became renowned for his his portraits also and as a writer and teacher of painting techniques.

The young cricketer – Portrait of Lewis Cage (1768)

Six years before his death Francis finally married, on the 3rd October 1764 at St Clement Danes, to Sarah Adderley.

One amusing comment noted in The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale being:

‘Whose picture is that said I, and that Lady’s pray, who is as eminent for her ugliness methinks, as anyone here for her beauty, hold for God’s sake says Francis Cotes, in a fright, ’tis my own wife, it is indeed; and I have been married to her but a fortnight’.

Princess Louisa and Princess Caroline 1767

Francis died on the Thursday afternoon, 19th July 1770, at Richmond, in Surrey, according to the Middlesex Journal, not on July 16th, 1770.

DIED… Thursday afternoon at Richmond, in Surry [sic], Mr. Francis Cotes, of Cavendish-square, and eminent Portrait Painter, and one of the Royal Academicians.

He was buried a week later on the 26th July at St Mary Magdalene, Richmond.

Sources

Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale (later Mrs Piozzi) 1776-1809, Volume 1

Lloyd’s Evening Post, July 23 1770 – July 25 1770

Middlesex Journal or Chronicle of Liberty July 21, 1770 – July 24, 1770

Anne Mee, 18th century artist

Anna Mee, born Foldsone, self portrait c.1795

Whilst looking at various miniatures by Anne Mee in the Royal Collection we decided to try to find out a little more about her. Most sources seem to know exactly when Anne died, but there appears to be speculation as to exactly when she was born, with most sources including the DNB opting for c1775, although given the birth of her siblings c1771 would appear a more likely date.

Anne was the daughter of John Foldsone and Elizabeth nee Fell who were married at St James, Westminster 29th August 1767.  Just over 9 months after the couple married they produced their first child Frances Ann who was later to appear as a witness to Ann’s marriage. Anne was reputed to be the eldest child but there is no sign so far of any baptism for her, hopefully that will come to light at some stage.

John certainly showed initiative, according to The Public Advertiser,  30th December 1769, John was advertising his services

As Mr Barrett a famous copyer of family and historical pictures is dead, permit me to offer myself to succeed him … 

He gave his address as ‘Little Castle Street, Oxford Market, name above the door.’

Foldsone exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain 1769-70 and the Royal Academy 1771-83 and specialized in small portraits which he often painted at the sitter’s home.  He died 1787 (not 1784 as previous sources have recorded)  and was buried at St Marylebone on the 12th August 1787, leaving Elizabeth to raise all their children.

The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1787. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

By the time of his death the couple had produced at least another 7 children – Henry John (1769),  Amelia (1773), Caroline (1776), Elizabeth (1777), John (1781) and William Henry (1783), although according to Horace Walpole, Anne was busy supporting her mother plus 8 siblings.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Anne Mee, 1813. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Money was in short supply so it fell to Anne, who had been educated at Madame Pomier’s school in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, to be the main provider for the family. Anne was clearly regarded as having some talent as an artist  and had began to paint at age 12, with tuition from George Romney. She went on to receive royal and aristocratic patronage.

Princess Charlotte of Walesby Anne Mee, before August 1814. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Walpole, in his inimitable fashion, complained about Anne ‘ I am out of humour with Miss Foldsone, though paid for, she has not yet sent me your pictures;  and has twice broken her promise of finishing them’. Walpole in a later letter, says that he has written to her several times, but ‘she has not deigned to even answer one in writing’.

Clearly from this next letter from Walpole to Miss Berry his patience had been sorely tested.

Miss Foldsone is a prodigy of dishonest impertinence—I sent her word a week ago by Kirgate that I was glad she had so much employment, but wished she would recollect that your pictures had been paid for these four months. She was such a fool as to take the compliment seriously and to thank m e for it, but verbally, and I have heard no more—so I suppose she thinks m e as drunk with her honours as she is—I shall undeceive her, by sending for the pictures again and telling her I can get twenty persons to finish them as well as she can —and so they could the likenesses, and I doubt, better …

Lady Cecilia Foley by Anne Mee, 1813. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 By March 1791, Walpole says:

I have got a solution of Miss Foldsone: she has a mother and eight brothers and sisters, who make her work incessantly to maintain them, and who reckon it loss of time to them, if she finishes any pictures that are paid for beforehand—That however is so very uncommon that I should not think the family would be much the richer. I do know that Lord Carlisle paid for the portraits of his children last July and cannot get them from her-at that rate I may see you before your pictures!

On the 16th May 1793 Anne married Joseph Mee by licence at St Marylebone Church, the same church that her siblings had been baptized at.  Apparently Joseph would only consent to let her paint  ladies and they were not to be accompanied into the painting room by gentlemen but whether this was true we can’t confirm, nor can we confirm that as Joseph was proud of his wife’s hair after a violent quarrel she cut it close to her head just to spite him!*

 

In November 1811 The Morning Chronicle reported that Anne was to publish  ‘The Gallery of Beauties of the Court of George the Third’.