Portrait of a lady, bust-length; and Portrait of a gentleman, bust-length

These portraits on copper are rare works by Catherine Humble, a miniaturist who was active in England in the second decade of the eighteenth century. In her Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, Daphne Foskett lists three bust-length portraits by Humble, all executed on copper (London, 1972, p. 334); these were seen by Basil Long (British Miniaturists, 1520-1860, London, 1929, p. 229) and are likely to be the three miniatures that were later sold in these Rooms, 4 March 1993, lot 5. In addition, Foskett records having seen ‘two good miniatures by this artist’; one of Lady Elizabeth Beddingfield, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Burlington, signed on the reverse and dated 1720; and the second of a gentleman, possibly a relation, dated 1717 (ibid.). The portrait showing the gentleman has been executed on the reverse of an engraver’s copper plate, depicting a dog in a landscape (fig. 1).

The details of Humble’s life and artistic career remain somewhat obscure. It seems likely that she was the daughter of William de Kaiser (d. 1691⁄2), a jeweller from Antwerp who became a painter and moved to London in the mid- to late 1680s. It was after de Kaiser's arrival there that he trained his daughter in oil painting. In his Anecdotes of Painting in England, Horace Walpole notes that Catherine married ‘one Mr. Humble a gentleman, he would not permit her to follow the profession. After his death she returned to it, and died in December 1724’ (London, 1763, III, pp. 100-102).