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Lot Essay
On the evening of the third of April 1817, an exotic, dark haired girl, speaking an unknown language arrived in the parish of Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, and indicated that she would like to take refuge there. The local magistrate, Samuel Worrell, took the young lady into his home. Over the subsequent weeks various 'facts' about her life came to light. She indicated that her name was Caraboo, and a Portuguese man from the Malay peninsula said that she spoke a variation of dialects spoken on the coast of Sumatra. He explained that she was an East Indian princess, who had been kidnapped from her island and brought to England against her will. Once her high-standing was known, Caraboo's fame spread. Another gentleman, who had travelled extensively in the East, was able to add to her story: her mother was a Malay who had been killed by cannibals and her father was from China and was the ruler of the island of Javasu. Though many people tried to catch her out, Caraboo's story appeared to be true. She never spoke a work of English, refused meat and alcohol, spent Tuesdays fasting on the roof of the Worrell's home and paraded round the gardens with a bow and arrow wearing a feathered headdress.
Caraboo travelled to Bath, where the present portrait was executed. There she moved in high society, appearing in articles in the Bath Chronicle and Bristol Gazette. It was the spreading of her fame that proved her undoing; desirous to see the famous savage princess, a Mrs Neal of Bristol came to Bath where she watched Caraboo in the Pump Rooms and recognised her as Mary Wilcocks, a servant who had once lodged with her. Mary's real life had been one of hardship and poverty; on discovering and verifying this, Mrs Worrell, who was fond of her protégée, agreed to buy Mary's passage to America. However, after only seven years, Mary returned, spending the rest of her life wandering between Spain, France and London, where, amongst other things, she became an importer of leeches. She died at the age of seventy-two in December 1865.
We are grateful to Hugh Belsey and Sue Sloman for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs.
Caraboo travelled to Bath, where the present portrait was executed. There she moved in high society, appearing in articles in the Bath Chronicle and Bristol Gazette. It was the spreading of her fame that proved her undoing; desirous to see the famous savage princess, a Mrs Neal of Bristol came to Bath where she watched Caraboo in the Pump Rooms and recognised her as Mary Wilcocks, a servant who had once lodged with her. Mary's real life had been one of hardship and poverty; on discovering and verifying this, Mrs Worrell, who was fond of her protégée, agreed to buy Mary's passage to America. However, after only seven years, Mary returned, spending the rest of her life wandering between Spain, France and London, where, amongst other things, she became an importer of leeches. She died at the age of seventy-two in December 1865.
We are grateful to Hugh Belsey and Sue Sloman for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs.