Sarah Lethieullier, Lady Fetherstonhaugh (1722-1788), as Diana
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1751 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
991 x 737 mm (39 x 29 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Uppark House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 138268
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sarah Lethieullier, Lady Fetherstonhaugh (1722-1788), as Diana by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), signed and dated, on dog's collar: P. B. 1751. Painted the same year as Batoni's other portrait of her, in the Little Parlour (NT/UPP/P/88). Portrayed in this case as the huntress Diana, with crescent moon, bow and hunting dog, to match the conception of her husband as a hunter (NT/UPP/P/50). Standing three-quarter length in a landscape, in pale orange-brown dress and blue cloak, a crescent moon in her hair, her left hand resting on the collar of a greyhound, a bow in her right. She was the daughter of Christopher Lethieullier, a director of the Bank of England. She married Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh in 1747.
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by the sitter's husband, Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh; thence by descent and inheritance, until accepted in lieu of tax on the death of Admiral the Hon. Sir Herbert Meade-Fetherstonhaugh (1875-1964) in 1965 and transferred to the National Trust by the Treasury in September 1990. Presumably commissioned by the sitter’s husband, Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh; early 19th-century hanging-plans, in the Great Drawing Room: “8. Lady Fetherston [by] Pompeo Battoni [overdoor on right-hand side of long wall]; [not cleaned by H. R. Bolton in 1849]; 1874 inventory, in the Drawing Room, as: “Do. [=‘Portrait of’] Lady Featherstone by Do. [= ‘Pompeo Battoni’]”; thence by descent and inheritance until accepted in lieu of tax on the death of Admiral the Hon. Sir Herbert Meade-Fetherstonhaugh (1875-1964) in 1965 and transferred to the National Trust by the Treasury, September 1990.
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: Painted at Rome by Pompeo Battoni Anno 1751 (inscribed later on stretcher) Verso: a label from the Fine Arts Department of the British Council for the Europalia Exhibition in Brussels, 1973, no.3
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]. Steegman 1946 J. Steegman, ‘Some English Portraits by Pompeo Batoni’, Burlington Magazine, vol. LXXXVIII, March 1946, no. 6 Pompeo Batoni and his British Patrons, exh. cat. (listed by Edgar Peters Bowron & Francis Russell), Kenwood House, Hampstead, London 8 June - 30 August, 1982, no. 56 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. 160, p. 253 & pl. 151 Ford & Ingamells, 1997 Sir Brinsley Ford and John Ingamells. A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800. New Haven & London Published from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1997, p. 354 Pompeo Batoni. Prince of Painters in Eighteenth-Century Rome (E. P. Bowron and Peter Björn Kerber), The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 21 October 2007- 27 January 2008 & The National Gallery, London 20 February - 18 May 2008, Yale University Press, 2007