STUDIO OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, PLYMPTON, 1723 - 1792, OIL ON CANVAS

STUDIO OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, PLYMPTON, 1723 - 1792, OIL ON CANVAS
Portrait of Amelia Hume, Lady Farnborough, aged around 8, wearing a coral necklace and a white Empire dress, with brown elbow length gloves, the sitter is holding a watercolour sketch believed to be in reference to the young Artist, in a period carved giltwood frame.
(sight 44.5cm x 57cm, frame 65cm x 78cm)

N.B. The sitter was the elder daughter and co-heiress (with Sophia, Countess Brownlow) of the renowned collector, Sir Abraham Hume and Amelia Egerton, in 1793, she married Charles Long, 1761 - 1838, who was created Baron Farnborough in 1826. She was herself, a celebrated amateur watercolourist and horticulturalist, Lady Farnborough, Nee Amelia Hume, 1772 - 1817, was described by Thomas Girtin, 1775 - 1802, as his ‘favourite pupil’. Sir Abraham was also a close friend of Reynolds, who bequeathed a work by Claude Lorraine to him in his will both her parents sat for Reynolds, 1783 and 1785.

Label verso believed wrongly identified
Handwritten inscription ‘Portrait by Rising of Sophia youngest daughter of Sir Abraham Hume Bart. Married 1810 to John, Lord Brownlow’

John Rising maintained a large practice in London and was a regular RA exhibitor from 1785 till his death. He is believed to have assisted Sir Joshua Reynolds and was a noted copyist of Reynold’s work. This may have led to his work at Belton House on behalf of Sir Abraham Hume, former Director of the British Institution In 1813, Sir Abraham was a driving force behind the Memorial Exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds held at The British Institute (and much admired by the novelist Jane Austen)

Amelia Sophia Hume sat for Domenico Pellegrini in 1797, and is commemorated by Antonio Canova’s memorial to her in Belton Church, Lincolnshire.

Provenance: It is thought this work was part of the sale of the contents of Ashridge, Berkhamsted, Herts, that took place in May 1923 following the death of the 3rd Earl Brownlow