Portrait of Norah Hill (1835-1920), aged 19, bust-length

Details

JOHN JOSEPH SLATTERY (ACTIVE 1846-1858)
Portrait of Norah Hill (1835-1920), aged 19, bust-length
signed and inscribed 'Norah M E Hill / aged 19. / 1856 by J. Slattery / Dublin' (on the reverse of the canvas)
oil on canvas, oval, unlined
21 x 16 ¾ in. (53 x 42.5 cm.)
Please note that 100% of the hammer proceeds from this auction will be paid to the Sandys Trust, registered charity number: 1168357, with the exception of limited deductions towards sale costs across the auction which cannot be accurately calculated at this time, capped at a total of £10,000.

Provenance

By descent to Richard Hill, 7th Baron Sandys (1931-2013), Ombersley Court, Worcestershire.

Literature

Ombersley Court Inventory, June 1963, annotated Ombersley MS., where listed in the Store Rooms.

Exhibited

Dublin, Industrial Exhibition Palace, Loan Museum of Art Treasures, 1873, no. 433, lent by Lord George Hill.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Adrian Hume-Sayer Director, Specialist

Lot Essay

Norah Hill was the daughter of the Anglo-Irish military officer and politician Lord George Hill and his first wife, Cassandra Jane Knight, a niece of Jane Austen. In 1859 she married Captain Somerset Ward, the fifth son of the Edward Southwell Ward, 3rd Viscount Bangor. The couple had one child, a daughter, also named Norah. Slattery’s portrait of the young Norah Hill is one of the few paintings that can be definitively given to the Irish artist, who exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy between 1852 and 1858 and is then believed to have emigrated to America.

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