拍品专文
Long considered to be a portrait of Mrs. Trevean, the sitter has recently been identified as Hester, Countess of Clanricarde. The youngest daughter of Sir Henry Vincent, 6th Bt., and Elizabeth, née Sherman, Hester married John Smith de Burgh, 11th Earl of Clanricarde on 1 July 1740, with whom she had four children.
This picture belongs to a group of five unidentified portraits by Romney that were sold together in these rooms on 3 May 1902, which Alex Kidson has recently identified as members of the De Burgh family. The present portrait was acquired by Agnew's who named the sitter as 'Mrs Temayne', an identification that almost certainly caused Ward and Roberts to associate it with Mrs Trevean, who sat to Romney in 1785 (Ward & Roberts, op. cit. p. 160.). Kidson notes that The National Gallery sketchbook, which emerged in the 1930s, reveals the draft of a letter from Romney to Lady Clanricarde, dating to late 1772, in which he tells her that her pictures are ready to be delivered. This dating corresponds closely with the style of the present portrait, which is far removed from the artist's work of the mid 1780s. When placed alongside the other two female portraits in the Osburn sale, it is immediately apparent that the sitter is the matriarch of the family group, and must therefore depict Hester, Countess of Clanricarde.
This portrait will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist by Alex Kidson, to whom we are grateful for his assistance in the cataloging of this picture.
This picture belongs to a group of five unidentified portraits by Romney that were sold together in these rooms on 3 May 1902, which Alex Kidson has recently identified as members of the De Burgh family. The present portrait was acquired by Agnew's who named the sitter as 'Mrs Temayne', an identification that almost certainly caused Ward and Roberts to associate it with Mrs Trevean, who sat to Romney in 1785 (Ward & Roberts, op. cit. p. 160.). Kidson notes that The National Gallery sketchbook, which emerged in the 1930s, reveals the draft of a letter from Romney to Lady Clanricarde, dating to late 1772, in which he tells her that her pictures are ready to be delivered. This dating corresponds closely with the style of the present portrait, which is far removed from the artist's work of the mid 1780s. When placed alongside the other two female portraits in the Osburn sale, it is immediately apparent that the sitter is the matriarch of the family group, and must therefore depict Hester, Countess of Clanricarde.
This portrait will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist by Alex Kidson, to whom we are grateful for his assistance in the cataloging of this picture.