GEORGE ENGLEHEART (1750-1829)

Mrs William Hayley, née Mary Welford, facing right in her bridal gown, white dress with high standing lace collar, white rose and foliage at corsage, wearing a gold cross and chain, white roses in her dark hair under her lace veil

Details

GEORGE ENGLEHEART (1750-1829)
Mrs William Hayley, née Mary Welford, facing right in her bridal gown, white dress with high standing lace collar, white rose and foliage at corsage, wearing a gold cross and chain, white roses in her dark hair under her lace veil
signed with initial 'E' (lower right) and signed and dated in full on the reverse 'G. Engleheart Hertford Street Mayfair London Pinxit. 1809'
oval, 3.1/8 in. (79 mm.) high, gilt-metal stamped mount with leaf border

Provenance

Mrs Godfrey (in 1929).
Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1966, lot 64 (£390 to W. A. Rappolt).

Literature

G. Williamson and H. L. D. Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750-1829 Miniature Painter to George III, London, 1902, p. 13 and 101.
E. E. Simmons, 'Deutsche Einflsse in der englischen Porträtminiaturmalerei des 18. Jahrhunderts', Weltkunst, 22, 15 November 1978, illustrated p. 2687.

Exhibited

London, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Miniatures of George Engleheart, J. C. D. Engleheart and Thomas Richmond, 1929, no. 149.

Lot Essay

Mary Welford (1781-1848) married William Hayley (see lot 83) as his second wife in 1809 but they separated after three years. George Engleheart was a close friend of William Hayley and he wrote the following verses in recognition of this miniature of the poet's wife:
'Dear Engleheart, with more than magic grace,
With heavenly aid you exercise your art;
You paint my fair one's virtues in her face,
A gracious Heaven impressed them on my heart.
For this may you whatever ills are rife,
Se all you love of joyous health possest,
And through a long and honourable life,
In you affections be supremely blest'

A miniature of William Hayley by George Engleheart is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (PD.10-1965), illustrated in R. Bayne-Powell, Catalogue of Portrait Miniatures in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Cambridge, 1985, p. 77.

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