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拍品专文
This depiction of Mrs. Dorothy Stables and her two daughters is among the artist's most sensitive and enchanting portraits. Eight sittings were required in February, March and April 1777, and March 1778, with the long period of inactivity likely explained by the sitter's fourth pregnancy, with her third daughter Frances Dorothy. A pendant portrait of her husband, John Stables, was also completed in 1777 and entered the Aitken collection in 1970 (see lot 65). Completed not long after his return from Italy, the present painting shows all the sophistication of the period when his reputation as a portrait painter rivalled that of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. The artist's most ambitious work, The Children of The Earl of Gower, painted for Granville, 2nd Earl of Gower (sold in these Rooms, 23 June 1972, as lot 109 for 140,000 guineas), and now at Abbot Hall, Kendal, was painted in the same year.
Dorothy Stables (née Papley) married John Stables, a director of the East India Company and later a member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta (1782-7), in January 1773. She is depicted with two of her daughters, Harriet and Maria, neither of whom ever married. Dorothy's husband returned from India after serving on the Supreme Council and lived at Wonham House, Surrey from 1793 and until his death in 1795. The early history of both Stables' portraits remains obscure, but this painting is recorded in the collection of a 'Mrs Addison' who lent it to the Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1890. In his annotated copy of the exhibition catalogue Sir George Scharf, the first director of the National Portrait Gallery, sketched this portrait (on p. 32) and noted the circumstances of the sale to Baron Edouard Alphonse de Rothschild:
'... by Romney "Mrs Stables" no. 154 of the Burlington House 1890, Exhibition an early sending to Burlington House a Romney, proposed to name £500 as insurance upon it. Humprey Ward said he would give £2,000 for it Davis heard of this and said he would give £5,000 when young Agnew went to his father and asked him to allow him to offer £6,000. Davis the dealer then applied to the Lady [Mrs Addison] asking her to fix a price [that he was asking for a client in Paris] but to put it in writing. She might say [£]8,000. The Lady's daughter whilst she was writing said make it £8,500, which was done and the dealer made £1,000 profit by it.'
This sum would have been a record price for Romney in the first few decades after his death, considering another portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton fetched £2,990 at auction in that same year (Spielmann, loc. cit.).
Dorothy Stables (née Papley) married John Stables, a director of the East India Company and later a member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta (1782-7), in January 1773. She is depicted with two of her daughters, Harriet and Maria, neither of whom ever married. Dorothy's husband returned from India after serving on the Supreme Council and lived at Wonham House, Surrey from 1793 and until his death in 1795. The early history of both Stables' portraits remains obscure, but this painting is recorded in the collection of a 'Mrs Addison' who lent it to the Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1890. In his annotated copy of the exhibition catalogue Sir George Scharf, the first director of the National Portrait Gallery, sketched this portrait (on p. 32) and noted the circumstances of the sale to Baron Edouard Alphonse de Rothschild:
'... by Romney "Mrs Stables" no. 154 of the Burlington House 1890, Exhibition an early sending to Burlington House a Romney, proposed to name £500 as insurance upon it. Humprey Ward said he would give £2,000 for it Davis heard of this and said he would give £5,000 when young Agnew went to his father and asked him to allow him to offer £6,000. Davis the dealer then applied to the Lady [Mrs Addison] asking her to fix a price [that he was asking for a client in Paris] but to put it in writing. She might say [£]8,000. The Lady's daughter whilst she was writing said make it £8,500, which was done and the dealer made £1,000 profit by it.'
This sum would have been a record price for Romney in the first few decades after his death, considering another portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton fetched £2,990 at auction in that same year (Spielmann, loc. cit.).