Lady Louisa Tollemache, Countess of Dysart (1745-1840)
John Constable, RA (East Bergholt 1776 - London 1837)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
c. 1805
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2376 x 1460 mm
Order this imageCollection
Ham House, Surrey
NT 1139644
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Louisa Tollemache, Countess of Dysart (1745-1840) (after Reynolds) by John Constable R.A. (East Bergholt 1776 - London 1837) and studio of John Hoppner R.A. (London 1758 - London 1810), circa 1805. Inscribed lower right (after 1840): Louisa Countess of Dysart / Born July 2, 1745. Married / John Manners Esquire September 4, 1765 / Died September 22, 1840. A full-length portrait of a young woman, turned slightly to the right, gazing to the right, her left elbow on a stone base of a column, and her cheek resting on her left hand, light-brown hair dressed high, and wearing a loose fitting white gown with a gold silk sash worn around her waist and down her right side and held in her right hand, a tassled red curtain hangs from the column on the right and there is a distant view of trees and sky to the left. The original portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted in 1779, is at Kenwood House, London. Lady Louisa Manners, 7th Countess of Dysart (1745-1840) was the eldest daughter of Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart (1708-70) and Lady Grace Carteret (1713-55) and married, in 1765, John Manners (1730-92) of Hanby Hall, Lincolnshire. She became Countess of Dysart in her own right in 1821. She was the mother of Sir William Tollemache, Viscount Huntingtower (1766-1833). Louisa Manners did not succeed to the property and title until she was aged 75, though she lived to be 94. Her eldest son had died aged about 66 in 1833. Louisa and her son were extremely well off. John Manners, who had died in 1792, was reputed to "have died worth nearly half a million the bulk of which he has left, under restrictions, to his eldest son, and about £100,000 in specific legacies" (Gents Mag. 1792, p.870). Louisa, in her will, dated 9 July 1840 - a couple of months before she died - expressed her "particular wish" that her grandson keep up Ham House and the Grounds. Yet, despite having died at Ham House, she had also expressed the wish to be buried "in my family vault at Helmingham". Her husband had been buried in the Manners vault in Bottesford Church, Leicestershire.
Provenance
In 1911 inventory; acquired in 1948 by HM Government when Sir Lyonel, 4th Bt (1854 – 1952) and Sir Cecil Tollemache, 5th Bt (1886 – 1969) presented Ham House to the National Trust, and entrusted to the care of the Victoria & Albert Museum, until 1990, when returned to the care of the National Trust, and to which ownership was transferred in 2002
Credit line
Ham House, The Dysart Collection (purchased by HM Government in 1948 and transferred to the National Trust in 2002)
Marks and inscriptions
Recto: Inscribed lower right: Louisa Countess of Dysart / Born July 2, 1745. Married / John Manners Esquire September 4, 1765 / Died September 22, 1840 [
Makers and roles
John Constable, RA (East Bergholt 1776 - London 1837), artist workshop of John Hoppner, RA (London 1758 – London 1810), artist after Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792), artist
