Anne Wellesley, Lady Charles Bentinck (1788-1875) c.1816-20
Watercolour on ivory laid on card | 9.2 x 7.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 422482
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Although this miniature is inscribed on the reverse as the first wife of Lord Charles Bentinck, Georgiana Seymour, it appears to represent Anne Wellesley, the second wife of Lord Charles Bentinck.
The features of the sitter in the present work are recognisable in Anne Mee's portrait of Wellesley when Lady Abdy (RCIN 420783), which forms part of Mee's series of miniatures known as the 'Gallery of Beauties' produced for George IV when Prince Regent in 1813. Two other versions of the present work are in existence, one at Stratfield Saye and the other in the Portland collection at Welbeck Abbey. Both are identified as Anne Wellesley. The Welbeck miniature is close to a coloured drawing in the same collection, bearing the same identification and sharing the same distinctive hooded eyelids, angled eyebrows and very dark hair.
Anne Wellesley, daughter of Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley and Hyacinthe Gabrielle Roland married, firstly, in 1806, Sir William Abdy (marriage dissolved June 1816) and secondly, in July 1816, as his second wife, Lord Charles Bentinck. She died, in her eighty-eighth year, in 1875.
Inscribed on the reverse in ink: Lady Charles Bentinck / 1st wife of Lord Charles / BentinckProvenance
Acquired by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; possibly from her mother, Nina Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck, Countess of Strathmore.
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Watercolour on ivory laid on card
Measurements
9.2 x 7.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
9.0 x 7.6 cm (frame (miniature), with ring closed/down)
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