PROPERTY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY FROM THE ESTATE OF WILLIAM A. COOLIDGE (Lots 110-11)*

Attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. (1723-1792)

Portrait of The Hon. Mrs. Stanhope as 'contemplation', seated three-quarter length beneath a tree, a moonlit river landscape beyond

Details

Attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. (1723-1792)
Portrait of The Hon. Mrs. Stanhope as 'contemplation', seated three-quarter length beneath a tree, a moonlit river landscape beyond
oil on canvas
48¼ x 35in. (122.5 x 89cm.)

Provenance

H.G. Marquand, New York; sale Mendelssohn Hall, New York, Jan. 23, 1903, lot 32 to T. Jefferson Coolidge.
William A. Coolidge, Topsfield, MA, and thence by descent.

Literature

P.C. Sutton, The William Appleton Coolidge Collection, 1995, pp. 146-9, no. 36 as a copy after Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Lot Essay

Reynolds painted four portraits of Mrs Stanhope, nèe Eliza Falconer, according to Graves and Cronin's account (A. Graves and W.V. Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., 1899-1901, pp. 296, 930-1). In one she appears in an interior, in another a landscape, in a third against an indeterminate background, and the fourth is a sketch. The present lot derives from the work sold to John Allnutt from the estate of Reynolds' niece, Lady Thomond, which then entered the collection of the Earl of Normanton in 1863. Mrs Stanhope sat for this portrait, possibly to record her marriage to the Hon. Henry Stanhope, in June 1782. It was engraved by John Raphael Smith, attesting to its popularity. A further autograph version was exhibited at the British Institution in 1785 as Melancholy.