Mary Cawthorne, Mrs Morley Unwin (1724-1796)
Arthur Devis (Preston 1712 - London 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1750
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
749 x 635 mm (29 ½ x 25 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Knightshayes Court, Devon
NT 541163
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Mary Cawthorne, Mrs Morley Unwin (1724-1796) by Arthur Devis (Preston 1712 – London 1787), circa 1750. A woman - the great-great-grandmother of the first Sir John's wife, Henrietta - seated on a circular bench around the trunk of a tree, in a quilted blue and silver satin mantua, with lace necking and cap held by blue bows, holding a blue satin cap on her lap with her right hand, and indicating with her left a church in the distance of a valley landscape, on the far side of a broad river. Mary Unwin was the wife of the Reverend Morley Unwin at Huntingdon. She was a close friend of the poet William Cowper, who stayed with her after her husband's death in 1767. Cowper wrote at least two poems to Mary Unwin. Henriette Mary Unwin married John Heathcoat Amory in 1863 - hence the family connection. This is the only early family portrait at Knightshayes.
Provenance
Painted for the sitter and/or her husband, Morley Unwin (1703–67; m.1744), and thence by descent to Henrietta (1841–1923), only daughter of William Unwin (1806–1869) of the Colonial Office and, after his retirement, of Hayne House, Bolham (d. 1904), and Jane Grant, eldest daughter of Major General James Murray Grant (1828–1901), 5th son of James Murray Grant, 12th Laird of Glenmoriston, who in 1863 married John Amory, the builder of Knightshayes, who in 1874 took the additional name and arms of Heathcoat and was created a baronet (1829–1914); thence by descent and inheritance to Joyce (née Wethered, d.1997), widow of Sir John Heathcoat-Amory, 3rd Bt (1894–1972), who formed the collections at Knightshayes, and gave it and part of them to the National Trust; given by her to the National Trust in the year of her death.
Makers and roles
Arthur Devis (Preston 1712 - London 1787) , artist
References
Pavière 1950 H. Pavière, The Devis Family of Painters, Leigh-on-Sea, 1950, p.63 D'Oench 1980 Ellen G. D’Oench, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis & His Contemporaries, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, p.88, no.159