Anne Lee, Mrs George Venables Vernon (c. 1726-1742)
attributed to Thomas Bardwell (East Anglia 1704 – Norwich 1767)
Date
c. 1741
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2413 x 1489 mm
Collection
Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire
NT 2900240
Summary
Oil on canvas, Anne Lee, Mrs George Venables Vernon (c. 1726-1742), attributed to Thomas Bardwell (East Anglia 1704 - Norwich 1767), with an identifying inscription (lower left), c. 1741. A full-length portrait of a woman, standing within a landscape, facing the viewer, wearing a black ‘Hélène Fourment’ (Van Dyck) dress and feathered and jewelled hat, her hands crossed and holding a white feather which points toward Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire, in the distance. Anne Lee was the daughter of Sir Thomas Lee, 3rd Bt. (1687-1749) of Hartwell House. In a George II grey and parcel-gilt eared frame with pendant foliage and fruit within sides, the top with a swan pediment and pierced foliage cresting.
Full description
The sitter, Anne Lee, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Lee, 3rd Bt., of Hartwell. She married George Venables-Vernon, 1st Baron Vernon (1709-1780) of Sudbury, Derbyshire, in 1741, only a year after the death of his first wife the Hon. Mary Howard. Her marriage, however, was brief, and Anne died the year after. This portrait which shows the sitter in a historicising dress, adapted from Rubens’s circa 1630-1632 portrait of his wife Helena Fourment (Lisbon, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian). This painting, widely disseminated through prints, became immensely popular in the early eighteenth century and frequently formed the compositional basis for portraits of women, using and adapting the pose of Rubens’s example along with the black dress, feathered hat and ostrich feather fan. A version of the present portrait of Anne exists in a work attributed to Thomas Hudson and Joseph van Aken at Sudbury Hall (NT 653160). It seems likely that both paintings were commissioned in around 1741 at the time of her marriage, with the present picture remaining at her paternal home at Hartwell and the other intended for her marital house at Sudbury. A pair of portraits of Anne and her husband attributed to Arthur Devis, likewise showing her wearing Rubensian dress and probably commissioned at the time of her marriage, are now in a private collection (Christie's, New York, 25 May 1999, lot 88).
Provenance
Probably commissioned by the sitter’s father at Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire and by descent to Mrs Benedict Eyre, Hartwell House; her sale, Sotheby’s, on the premises, 26 April 1938, lot 52, as ‘T. Hudson’, when acquired by The Hon. Peter Peatty, Mereworth Castle, Kent, and by inheritance to his nephew, Michael Lambert Tree and Lady Anne Tree, née Cavendish; Christie’s, London, 23 May 1968, lot 118, as ‘attributed to Highmore’ (1, 200 guineas to Philips); private collection, England; purchased by the National Trust in 2017 for display at Hartwell House (Historic House Hotel), with the support of a National Trust fund set up by the late Simon Sainsbury; Historic House Hotels; and an anonymous donor.
Makers and roles
attributed to Thomas Bardwell (East Anglia 1704 – Norwich 1767), artist