Portrait of Miss Harriet Hope (b.c. 1768), half-length, in a yellow dress with a feather and pearl headdress

Details

Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A. (Derby 1734-1797)
Portrait of Miss Harriet Hope (b.c. 1768), half-length, in a yellow dress with a feather and pearl headdress
oil on canvas, oval
13¾ x 11¾ in. (35 x 29.8 cm.)

Provenance

Vernon Mellor.
H.R. Edwards; Christie's, London, 16 April 1982, lot 80 (£23,760).

Literature

B. Nicholson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, London, 1968, I, pp. 70-1, 143, 206-7, no. 90; II, fig. 181.

Exhibited

Graves' Galleries, 1910, no. 22 (lent by Vernon Mellor).
Derby, Art Gallery, Joseph Wright of Derby, 1947, no. 10.
London, Sotheby's, Childhood exhibition, January 1988, no. 49.
London, Christie's; Manchester, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Treasures of the North: An exhibition to benefit The Christie Hospital, Manchester, 13 January-9 April 2000, no. 59.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.

View condition report

Lot Essay

Wright painted portraits of Harriet's parents, the Reverend Charles Hope (1732-1798), vicar of St. Werburgh's, Derby, and Susannah (1744-1807), daughter of Benjamin Stead, shortly after their marriage in 1760 (B. Nicholson, op. cit., pp. 206-7, both untraced). The Hopes were old friends of the artist and Wright's portraits in oval of Harriet and her older brother, Charles (1762-1841) (13½ x 11½ in.; private collection), which were painted circa 1776-1777, are amongst the most informal and intimate of his series of portraits of children during this period (ibid., p. 70).
Charles married on 11th April 1793 Miss Mellor, in whose family this portrait descended.
An inscription on the stretcher erroneously suggests the sitter's Christian name to have been 'Susannah', presumably the sister who married in 1786 the nephew of the Duke of Somerset, Edward Seymour Biscoe.

More from Old Master & British Pictures

View All