Maria Woodley, Mrs Walter Riddell (1772-1808)
Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1805 - 1806 (exh at RA)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
749 x 622 mm (29 1/2 x 24 1/2 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset
NT 1257069
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Maria Woodley, Mrs Walter Riddell (1772-1808) by Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830), 1806. A half-length portrait, turned to right, profile, her left arm on a ledge, her left cheek supported by her left hand; wearing a low-cut dress of orange and brown. Maria Woodley, Mrs Riddell (1772-1808), was the sister of Frances Woodley (1760-1823), who married Henry Bankes the Younger (1757-1834). Maria was the third daughter of William Woodley (1722-93), who appears in the The Woodley Family by Zoffany (KLA/P/118). She married, firstly, in 1790 (or 1802?), Lt Walter Riddell (1764-1802), with whom she had her only surviving daughter Anna Maria Riddell, who married a Captain Walker in 1811; and, secondly, in the last year of her life, Philipps Lloyd Fletcher (1782-1863). She and her first husband were friends and patrons of the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
Provenance
not collected by the sitter or her husband; acquired from Sir Thomas Lawrence's executors in 1833; bequeathed by Ralph Bankes, 1981
Credit line
Kingston Lacy, The Bankes Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Recto: (painted in black on fixed gilt label, centred under image) Verso: The unlined canvas has an excise mark, apparently without crown, thereby dating the canvas 1784-90. As it is known to have been painted in 1806 - the year in which it was exhibited - or slightly before, Lawrence must have been using an old canvas.
Makers and roles
Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830), artist
References
Garlick 1989 Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence. A complete catalogue of the oil paintings, Oxford, 1989, no. 679
