Gioconda Mary Hulton (1887-1940)
Riccardo Nobili (b.1859)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1938 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
640 x 580 mm
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 609124
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Gioconda Mary Hulton (1887-1940) by Riccardo Nobili (b.1859), signed and dated, bottom right: RICCARDO NOBILI Venezia 1938. A half-length portrait of Teresa Hulton's sister as a young woman, facing, brown hair and blue eyes, against a plain mustard colour background. She is wearing a red jacket and white blouse with necktie. Gioconda Mary Hulton (1887-1949), was the daughter of William Stokes Hulton (1852-1921), the artist, the son of a parson and Costanza Mazini daughter of Vicenzo Mazini (d.1869) (a friend, but not a relative, of the Italian patriot, Mazzini), and Linda White the daughter of James White, a textile merchant and Liberal MP for Brighton. In 1870 after the death of her husband, Linda Mazini moved with Constanza to Florence, and in 1876 Linda married Pasquale Villari, a distinguished historian and later a Senator. Shortly after their marriage William Hulton and Constanza Mazini moved to Venice and bought the two upper floors of the Palazzo Donà in Venice. The Palazzo was situate in the Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo the most spectacular square in Venice after San Marco. The great gaunt Dominican church of SS Giovanni e Paolo which dominates the Campo is flanked by the Scuola Grande di San Marco and the equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni (d.1475) by Andrea Verrocchio (1481-88). Gioconda was born in Venice in 1887 and her sister Edith Teresa Hulton, later Lady Berwick (1890-1972) was born in Asolo where their parents had gone to escape the summer heat of Venice and join the small English colony encamped there which included the widowed Robert Browning. Walter Sickert was also a great friend of the Hultons and greatly admired Gioconda’s drawings and assisted her with painting lessons. In 1933 Sickert painted portraits of both Gioconda and Teresa. Lady Berwick later recounted “We went to his studio in Barnsbury Park & he took some photos. From these he did two large canvasses, three-quarter length, rather over life size, the one of Gioconda standing, in grizaille, mine in a figured blue dress, also standing, a hat on a chair nearly. The picture of my sister was later sold – mine is here…” The portrait of Gioconda was sold at Sotheby’s in 1944 and its present whereabouts is unknown. In the event of Lord Berwick’s death, Lady Berwick planned that her sister should come to live with her, but unfortunately Gioconda died in a road accident in 1940.
Provenance
Attingham collection; bequeathed to the National Trust by Edith Teresa Hulton, Lady Berwick (1890-1972).
Credit line
Attingham Park, The Berwick Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
RICCARDO NOBILI Venezia 1938 (signed and dated bottom right)
Makers and roles
Riccardo Nobili (b.1859), artist