CATHARINE, VISCOUNTESS SUDLEY (1739-1770)

Details

CHRISTOPHER HEWETSON (1737-1799), ROME, CIRCA 1767-9
CATHARINE, VISCOUNTESS SUDLEY (1739-1770)
Marble bust; signed to the reverse 'Christophus Hewetson. fect - CATHERINE VISCOUNTESS SUDLEY -'; on a circular marble socle and a later square marble pedestal
24 ¼ in. (62 cm.) high, overall; 16 ½ in. (42 cm.) high, the pedestal

Provenance

By descent from the sitter to the 6th Earl of Arran (1868-1958).
Christie's, London, 11 December 1984, lot 19, where acquired by the present owner.

Literature

B. De Breffny, ‘Christopher Hewetson, a Preliminary Catalogue Raisonné’, Irish Arts Review, vol. 111, 1986, pp. 52-75, no. 26.
I. Roscoe, et. al., A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, London, 2009, p. 610, no. 7.

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Lot Essay

The sitter, Catherine Annesley, daughter of William, 1st Viscount Glerawly, married Arthur Gore, Viscount Sudley, in 1760. The couple embarked on a Grand Tour in Italy together from 1767, and Horace Walpole noted that Gore had been invited to dinner by Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor in Florence that year. By 1769 they had reached Rome, where they commissioned Batoni to paint their joint portrait (Christie's, London, 5 July 2018, lot 55). The portrait bust by Hewetson must have been executed between 1767 and 1769, and is therefore Hewetson's earliest known work in Italy.

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