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拍品专文
Henrietta Smith was the daughter of John Dodsworth (1687-1760) of Thornton Watlass, Yorkshire, and a direct descendant of King Edward III. In 1761, she married John Silvester Smith (1734-1789), who became 1st baronet in 1784. Their two sons Edward (1768-1845) and Charles (1775-1857), successively 2nd and 3rd baronets, both changed their name, to Dodsworth, their mother's maiden name, in 1821.
Dressed in a gentle pink gown with white sleeves, Henrietta plays a lute with an elaborate brass rose, a reflection of her cultural refinement and education. George Romney recorded a Mrs. Smith of Newland Park in the June section of his 1778 sitter’s book and Alex Kidson has convincingly linked the present portrait with nine sittings given by Mrs. Smith between 11 May and 6 July of that year (loc. cit.). Kidson also addresses a previous confusion with another half-length portrait of a ‘Mrs Smith’ from 1777, recorded in John Romney’s Rough Lists and repeated by Ward and Roberts (loc. cit.). This work was once thought to depict Henrietta, but Kidson has clarified it in fact represents a Mrs. Margaret Smith (op. cit. p. 537, no. 1203).
Additionally, Kidson includes a portrait of Henrietta’s husband, though only tentatively endorses its traditional attribution to Romney (ibid., no. 1197; Private collection, North Yorkshire). From photographs he notes that the style of the male portrait ‘looks less than wholly characteristic and closer to Francis Cotes,’ speculating that Romney may have completed an unfished work by Cotes, or possibly touched up a finished portrait.
Dressed in a gentle pink gown with white sleeves, Henrietta plays a lute with an elaborate brass rose, a reflection of her cultural refinement and education. George Romney recorded a Mrs. Smith of Newland Park in the June section of his 1778 sitter’s book and Alex Kidson has convincingly linked the present portrait with nine sittings given by Mrs. Smith between 11 May and 6 July of that year (loc. cit.). Kidson also addresses a previous confusion with another half-length portrait of a ‘Mrs Smith’ from 1777, recorded in John Romney’s Rough Lists and repeated by Ward and Roberts (loc. cit.). This work was once thought to depict Henrietta, but Kidson has clarified it in fact represents a Mrs. Margaret Smith (op. cit. p. 537, no. 1203).
Additionally, Kidson includes a portrait of Henrietta’s husband, though only tentatively endorses its traditional attribution to Romney (ibid., no. 1197; Private collection, North Yorkshire). From photographs he notes that the style of the male portrait ‘looks less than wholly characteristic and closer to Francis Cotes,’ speculating that Romney may have completed an unfished work by Cotes, or possibly touched up a finished portrait.