Miss Elizabeth Darby (d.1838)
Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1783 - 1785
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1255 x 990 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 485046
Caption
Elizabeth Darby was the mistress of Boothby ‘Prince’ Skrymshire, a noted dandy, whose portrait by Reynolds is also in the collection at Petworth, and used to hang next to hers. He appears to have paid for two portraits of her, in January 1783 and January 1785. The payment of 100 guineas was each time noted as by: “Mr. Boothby, for a Lady”. The one surviving record of her sitting for what was probably the second of these is as “Mr. Boothby’s Lady”. Nothing else but her date of death appears to be known of her; nor is it even clear where her name was first discovered. It appears from the Petworth inventories that the portraits of Charles Boothby Skrymshire and Elizabeth Darby hung together at Petworth until c.1856, when they were hung in separate places, perhaps to stress that their relationship was by then deemed improper.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Miss Elizabeth Darby (d.1838) by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), circa 1783-1785. A three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman, seated, reading a letter, with her left hand supporting her head, turned three-quarters left. A red curtain is behind her with the sky in the left background. She is wearing a dress of silvery dove grey. Elizabeth Darby was the mistress of Boothby ‘Prince’ Skrymshire, a noted dandy, whose portrait by Reynolds is also in the collection, NT 485045, was identically framed (his frame is now on P/531, the Lely-manner portrait of Nathaniel Palmer), and used to hang next to hers. He appears to have paid for two portraits of her, in January 1783 and January 1785, the payment of 100 guineas each time being noted as by: “Mr. Boothby, for a Lady”; and the one surviving record of her sitting for – probably the second of – these is as “Mr. Boothby’s Lady”. Nothing else but her date of death (given by Graves & Cronin) appears to be known of her; nor is it even clear where her name was first discovered. It appears from the inventories that the portraits of Charles Boothby Skrymshire and Elizabeth Darby hung together at Petworth until around 1856, when they were hung in separate places, perhaps because to stress their relationship was by then deemed improper.
Provenance
Painted for Charles Boothby Skrymshire (1740–1800), probably in 1783 (a year for which Reynolds’s pocket-book is missing) and probably bought at Skrymshire’s posthumous sale at his house in Clarges Street by George O’Brien (Wyndham), 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751–1837) and thence by descent to the current Lord Egremont. On loan from the Egremont Private Collection
Credit line
Petworth House, On Loan from The Egremont Collection
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: Printed label of the R.A.’s 1871 Old Masters exhibition, filled in with the title: Portrait of a Lady seated on a sofa; with the name of the artist: Sir Joshua Reynolds; and of the ‘Proprietor’: The Rt. Hon. Lord Leconfield, Petworth House, Sussex Verso: Painted in bold white on back of canvas: 95; and in white chalk: 9; inscribed on stretcher in (different) chalks: 95 and: L OF FIRE.
Makers and roles
Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792), artist