Lady Louisa Theodosia Hervey, Countess of Liverpool (1767-1821)
George Romney (Dalton-in-Furness 1734 – Kendal 1802)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1790 - 1793
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2210 x 1499 mm (87 x 59 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 851766
Caption
The sitter was the third, and youngest daughter of Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, ‘Earl-Bishop’ (1730-1803) and Elizabeth Davers, daughter of Sir Jermyn Davers, 5th Bt. She was brought up in virtual seclusion at Ickworth by her doting mother, who commissioned this portrait in 1793. Two years later, in 1795, she married Sir Robert Bankes Jenkinson (1770-1828), the future 2nd Earl of Liverpool. This is a curiously statuesque portrait for Romney, and the proportional relationship of the upper and lower parts of the body seem wrong – almost as if the latter has been elongated to match the harp.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Louisa Theodosia Hervey, Countess of Liverpool (1770-1821) by George Romney (Dalton-in-Furness 1734 – Kendal 1802), 1790-1793. Full-length portrait of a young woman, turned slightly to the left, gazing to the left, leaning, with her right arm, on a harp with chinoiserie decoration; she wears a long white dress, blue sash tied in a bow behind; medium brown hair; white turban.
Provenance
Sittings &c.: 1790, July 16, 19, Nov. 29, Dec. 3, 7, 21; 1791, Feb. 8, 14, 18, 24, March 3, 10, 15, 21, 29, April 2; 1792, July 23. Paid for in full by Lady Bristol, 120 gns. June 5, 1793; sent to Lady Bristol’s December 1792 [= the sitter’s mother, Elizabeth, Countess of Bristol (1730-1800)]; thence by descent to the 4th Marquess of Bristol (1863-1951), until accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of death duties. Loaned to the National Trust in 1956 under the auspices of the National Land Fund, later the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and then transferred to the National Trust in 1983.
Credit line
Ickworth, The Bristol Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1956)
Makers and roles
George Romney (Dalton-in-Furness 1734 – Kendal 1802), publisher
References
Ward and Roberts 1904 Humphrey Ward & W. Roberts, Romney, 1904, Vol.II, p.77