Portrait of Charlotte Augusta Oom, née Papendiek (1783-1854), half-length, in a white dress with a lyre-shaped brooch

Details

SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A. (BRISTOL 1769-1830 LONDON)
Portrait of Charlotte Augusta Oom, née Papendiek (1783-1854), half-length, in a white dress with a lyre-shaped brooch
oil on canvas
30 ¼ x 25 1⁄8 in. (76.9 x 63.8 cm.)

Provenance

Commissioned by the sitter for £21 on 28 February 1806.
Sir Philip Wodehouse Currie (1834-1906), from whom acquired in 1895 by the following,
with P. & D. Colnaghi, London, from whom presumably acquired by,
Friedrich Christian Karl Fleischmann (d. 1907), Liverpool and London, and by inheritance to his widow,
Eliza Fleischmann, née Ashcroft (d. 1924), London, and by descent to her son,
Frederick Noel Ashcroft (1878-1949), London, and by inheritance to his widow,
Constance Muriel Im Thurn Ashcroft (b. 1880), London, from whom acquired by the following,
with Edward Speelman, London, from whom acquired on 20 October 1981 by the father of the present owner.

Literature

Sir W. Armstrong, Lawrence, London, 1913, p. 158.
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, London, 1954, p. 54.
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence: A complete catalogue of the oil paintings, Oxford, 1989, p. 247, no. 618, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, White City, Franco-British Exhibition, 14 May-31 October 1908, no. 57 (lent by Mrs F.C.K. Fleischmann).
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, A loan exhibition of a well-known Private Collection...In Aid of the British Red Cross Society, June 1915, no. 6.
Ipswich, Ipswich Museum, Bicentenary Memorial Exhibition of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., 7 October-5 November 1927, no. 79 (lent by Frederick Noel Ashcroft).

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Lucy Speelman Junior Specialist, Head of Part II

lspeelman@christies.com +44 207 752 3074

Lot Essay

Charlotte Augusta was the daughter of Christopher and Charlotte Papendiek. Her father was a violinist and flautist who served as a court musician to King George III, while her mother was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte, holding the roles of Assistant Keeper of the Queen’s Wardrobe and later, the Queen’s reader. At court, the Papendiek family formed close associations with prominent artists and musicians of the period, including Johann Christian Bach (son of Johann Sebastian Bach), Franz Joseph Haydn, Thomas Gainsborough, and Thomas Lawrence. Charlotte Papendiek’s memoirs include an account of the young Lawrence working on his portrait of the Queen dated 1789 (National Gallery, London; see M. Kassler, The Memoirs of Charlotte Papendiek (1765–1840): Court, Musical and Artistic Life in the Time of King George III, London, 2021). That same year, Lawrence also produced a chalk drawing of Mrs. Papendiek and her young son Frederick (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Years later, Lawrence painted Charlotte Agusta, shortly after her marriage to Thomas Oom, a wealthy Russian merchant. The distinctive lyre broach may refer to her own love of music; after her husband suffered significant financial losses in business, she helped support the household by working as a music teacher and tutor. Following the death of her first husband, Charlotte married the Right Honorable Joseph Planta, a member of Parliament who went on to serve as Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and later as Senior Secretary to the Treasury. After Planta’s death in 1846, Charlotte was granted rooms at Hampton Court Palace, where she lived for the remainder of her life.

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