GEORGE ROMNEY* (1734-1802)

Details

GEORGE ROMNEY* (1734-1802)

Portrait of The Honorable Mrs. Richard Tickell (née Sarah Ley), 1756-1787, seated half length, wearing a white dress with mauve sash, her hands clasped, in a landscape

oil on canvas
30 x 25 1/8in (76.2 x 63.8cm.)

Provenance

Christie's, 1897, Map 80, lot 60 (to Agnew)
Maria deWitt Jesup (from the collection of her husband, Morris K. Jesup), by whom bequeathed to the museum in 1914

Literature

H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney, A Biographical and Critical Essay with a Catalogue Raisonne of his Works, 1904, II, pp. 157-8 B. Burroughs, European Paintings in the Jesup Collection, Metropolitan Museum Bulletin, 10, 1915, pp. 88-89
K. Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980, I, p. 158; II, p. 262, illustrated

Lot Essay

The sitter was the daughter of Captain Ley, for many years in the service of the H.E.I.C, as chief officer of various ships and commander of the Berrington, East Indiaman from 1792-93. She married Richard Tickell, one of the Commissioners of Stamps.
Mrs. Tickell sat for Romney no less than twenty-three times, before her marriage, and 14 times after. In 1791 she sat for Romney on May 21 and 30, June 6 and 12, July 5, October 12 and 26, November 4 and 15, and December 15 in 1791, and again in 1792 on March 1 and 27, April 4 and May 16. From these sittings Romney produced three portraits including the present lot.

There were frequent references to Romney's painting of Mrs. Tickell's portrait in the newspapers of the time, such as appeared in the X of September 1788, "few modern Pencils have had more success in the delineation of Female Grace or Youthful Simplicity than that of Mr. Romney's."