Mary Parminter (1767-1849)
attributed to Ozias Humphry RA (Honiton 1742 – London 1810)
Category
Art / Miniatures
Date
circa 1784
Materials
Watercolour on ivory
Measurements
57 x 48 mm (2 1/4 x 1 7/8 in)
Order this imageCollection
A La Ronde, Devon
NT 1313488.5
Caption
This exceptional watercolour on ivory miniature shows Mary Parminter as a young lady. It was presumably painted for her relatives in England before she embarked with her cousin Jane on the grand tour that lasted from 1784 to 1795 and from which they returned to build A la Ronde.
Summary
Watercolour on ivory portrait miniature, Mary Parminter (1767-1849), attributed to Ozias Humphry RA (Honiton 1742 – London 1810), circa 1784. Oval. An almost half-length portrait of a young woman, turned slightly to the left, gazing at the spectator, in a pale blue dress and white diaphanous shawl fastened with a brooch. Hazel eyes, dark brown hair, ruddy complexion, aged about 18. Greenish-drab gouache background, lit from the left. Oval gold locket with dark hair in the back surrounding a white enamel oval with true-love knot, laurel wreath and a blue enamel circle with initial 'P' in seed pearls. One of a group of seven miniature painted pendant portraits in oval gold settings.
Full description
The miniature is of very good quality and can be dated to c. 1784. Ozias Humphry's name is put forward here as a possibility, but without much conviction. He was a Devonian (born in Honiton), but by this time he had long been working in London, and in oils. Mary (1767-1849), daughter of Richard (III) Parminter (1736-1779) and Polly Walrond (1747-1772). She accompanied her cousins, Jane and Elizabeth Parminter, on their tour abroad in 1784, and after their return, Jane and Mary combined to build A la Ronde. Foreign travel was evidently in their gene pool: Daniel and Samuel Lysons, writing in Magna Britannia: Devon (1820), pp. clxxix-clxxx, say of Jane and Elizabeth's brother: 'Mr John Parminter, who, if living, is the representative of the family, is supposed to be leading a wandering life of the continent'. Mary Parminter died unmarried in 1849, leaving a complicated will, stipulating, amongst other things, that A la Ronde should pass only to unmarried female relations, and leaving it to two of them, Jane and Sophia Hurlock. Text adapted from Richard Walker and Alastair Lang, Portrait Miniatures in National Trust Houses, Vol. 2: Cornwall, Devon & Somerset, pp .10-11.
Provenance
Original Parminter item that was removed by Stella Tudor upon her marriage in 1880; taken with her to the vicarages of Turkdean then East Garston and, after her death, with her husband to Reading. Upon his death this item was recorded in both the 1925 and the 1930 Probate and Valuation Inventory and was then passed to his daughters Margaret and Stella Tudor who returned it to A La Ronde upon Margaret’s purchase of the property in 1930. It was purchased from Mrs Tudor Perkins in 1991.
Makers and roles
attributed to Ozias Humphry RA (Honiton 1742 – London 1810), artist
References
Walker, R. J. B, Portrait miniatures in National Trust houses, 2005, pp. 10-11 Conroy, Rachel, Women Artists and Designers at the National Trust, 2025, pp. 90-93