Katherine Durnford, later Mrs Utrick Fetherstonhaugh, as Flora
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1751 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
965 x 724 mm (38 x 28 ½ in)
Order this imageCollection
Uppark House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 138264
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Katherine Durnford, later Mrs Utrick Fetherstonhaugh, as Flora by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), signed as embroidery on dress: P. B. 1751. A half-length portrait leaning to the left on a console on which she holds a basket of flowers; she wears a red cloak which she holds to her body with her right hand. Traditionally described as Charlotte Durnford. But as a letter from Miss Lynn Allen (7th September 1982, in file) makes clear, it was Katherine, not Charlotte, who married Utrick Fetherstonhaugh. Charlotte married Robert Raynor of Docking, Norfolk. The sitter was the sixth daughter of Dr Durnford, Vicar of Harting, and wife of the Reverend Utrick Fetherstonhaugh, younger brother of Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh, whom she and her future husband joined on the family's Grand Tour in 1749 - 51.
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh; thence by descent and inheritance until acquired by the National Trust from the family in 1971. Presumably commissioned by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh of his wife’s companion in Italy; early 19th-century hanging plans, in the Little Drawing Room: “I. Mrs. Fetherson Pompeo Battoni” [overdoor to left of chimneypiece]; H. R. Bolton’s bill, 28 September 1849, in the Small Drawing Room: “22 Portrait of the Wife of the Above [the Rev. U. Featherstone] P Battoni”; 1874 inventory, in the Little Drawing Room, as: “Do. [= ‘Portrait of’] Mrs. Featherstone by Do. [= ‘Pompeo Battoni’]”; thence by inheritance and descent, until acquired by the National Trust from the family in 1971.
Credit line
Uppark, The Fetherstonhaugh Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: Charlotte Fetherson haugh - / Wife of the Revd Utrick Fetherstone / haugh - Painted at Rome by Pompeo Battoni - / Anno 1751 (19th century label pasted to back of canvas) /Anno 1754 [sic] [NB: ADL notes, post-fire, 6 September 1989, that it actually reads Anno 1751]
Makers and roles
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), artist
References
Walpole, 1927-1928: Horace Walpole’s Journals of visits to country seats, &c. Ed. Paget Toynbee. Vol. 16. Walpole Society.1927-8. [Uppark pp.68-69]. Pompeo Batoni and his British Patrons, exh. cat. (listed by Edgar Peters Bowron & Francis Russell), Kenwood House, Hampstead, London 8 June - 30 August, 1982, p.91, no.58 Clark and Bowron 1985 Anthony M. Clark & Edgar Peters Bowron (ed.), Pompeo Batoni A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, Oxford 1985, no.159, p.253 & pl.149.