LATE 18TH CENTURY

This fine pair of late 18th century portraits depict Anne Lady Harewood (1742/3- 1805) and her daughter Lady Francis Douglas, née Lascelles (1762- 1817) with her dog. We have been able to identify the sitters for these two portraits with certainty from portraits of both sitters by Francis Cotes (1726-1770) surviving at Harewood House. Both portraits seem to be loosely based on Cotes' works however there are notable differences to each, the portrait of Anne Lady Harewood bears strong similarity of pose but the clothing and background differ, whereas in the image of her daughter the composition and setting are retained but the features are less accurately reproduced and the hair is differently styled, with the removal of the cap present in Cotes' work.

In the late 18th century acquiring a portrait of this kind was a novelty preserved for the extremely wealthy. A likeness would need to be created in England to then be exported to China along with the most expensive part of the object at that date, the glass; the likeness would then be copied in reverse to the back of the glass by the Chinese painter then to be returned to England. By the time the portrait arrived back with the person who commissioned it, the costly, and extremely fragile glass would have completed a treacherous 10,000 mile round-trip, needless to say many such objects did not survive the trip. The Lascelles family fortune was made from mercantile endeavour, and it would probably be through his contacts in that world that Lord Harewood would order these charming pictures of his wife and daughter.