Lot Essay
The present work can be regarded as a 'fancy' painting of a whimsical subject. However, an earlier description of a fair Sultana named Fatima exists in a letter from Mary Wortley Montagu to her sister in 1718:
'I was led into a large room, with a sofa the whole length of it...where I was desired to repose till the Sultana appeared...but she did not seem to me to have ever been half so beautiful as the fair Fatima I saw at Adrianople'.
'I was led into a large room, with a sofa the whole length of it...where I was desired to repose till the Sultana appeared...but she did not seem to me to have ever been half so beautiful as the fair Fatima I saw at Adrianople'.