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PROPERTY FROM THE VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE ACQUISITIONS FUND

Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. (1769-1830)

Portrait of Mrs Sinclair, three-quarter-length, in a white dress, an eyeglass on a chain around her neck

Details

Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. (1769-1830)
Portrait of Mrs Sinclair, three-quarter-length, in a white dress, an eyeglass on a chain around her neck
oil on canvas
36 x 28 in. (91.5 x 71 cm.)

Provenance

W. Windus Clifton.
with Knoedler, New York;
Daniel G. Reid, 1911.
John Reid Topping, 1941.

Literature

Gowans, The Masterpieces of Lawrence, Glasgow, 1913, illustrated, p.81.
K. Garlick, Walpole Society, XXXIX, 1962-1964, p.177, as 'Sinclair, Lady, Mrs or Miss. Variously described'.
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence: A Complete Catalogue of the Oil Paintings, Oxford, 1989, p.266, fig.721.

Exhibited

Alabama, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, May 1955.
Ohio, The Columbus Gallery of Fine Art, Sir Thomas Lawrence as Painter and Collector, October 1955, no. 27 (lent by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts).

Special Notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The sitter's identity is not firmly established. A candidate who started as Mrs Sinclair and subsequently became Lady Sinclair, was the Hon. Catherine Camilla Tollemache (d.1863), daughter of William, Lord Huntingtower and sister of the 6th Earl of Dysart. She became The Hon. Mrs. Sinclair on her marriage in 1816 to Sir George Sinclair (1790-1868), 2nd Bt., and Lady Sinclair on the death of her father-in-law, Sir John Sinclair, in 1835. Alternatively, the sitter may be one of Sir John Sinclair's six daughters, who would have been Miss Sinclair in the 1820s.

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