Lady Louisa Caroline Isabella Hervey, Lady Smyth (1715-1770) as a Child
Joseph Brook (d.1725)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1716
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
730 x 610 mm (28 ¾ x 24 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 851960
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Louisa Caroline Isabella Hervey, Lady Smyth (1715-1770) as a Child by Joseph Brook (fl.1690 - d.1725), inscribed, in large, crude letters, top left: Lady Louisa / Carolina / Isabella / Hervey, 1716. A portrait of a child, full length, seated on a red cushion. She has blue eyes and brown hair. She is holding a blue drape in her left hand across her naked body. There is a tasselled brown curtain behind, and distant trees to right.
Provenance
Commissioned by John, 1st Earl of Bristol (1665-1751), as indicated by the entry in his ‘Book of Expences’, as recorded by S. H. A. Hervey, in his edition of the Diary of John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, Wells, 1894, Section XI, p.162, under 8 December 1716: “Paid Mr. Brook for Louisas, Felles & Winns pictures, in full, £8.12.0.”; and Appendix 15: Lord Bristol’s children, p.251, no.44: ‘Louisa’; by Brook; in 1716; see No.39 [i.e. a portrait of The Hon. Felton Hervey, by Brook, for which, with this and the portrait of the race-horse ‘Wenn’ (ICK/P/154), the artist was paid £8.12s.0d]; later at Rushbrook, in which collection it is listed by Edmund Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West), 1908, p.297, no.26 as: “By Joseph Brook, of Bury St. Edmunds”, and from which it was probably acquired by Theodora, Marchioness of Bristol (1875-1957); [? Rushbrook sale in the 1920s?], but valued as part of the estate of her husband; accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of tax and transferred to the National Trust in 1956
Credit line
Ickworth, The Bristol Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1956)
Marks and inscriptions
Lady Louisa Carolina Isabella Hervey
Makers and roles
Joseph Brook (d.1725), artist
References
Farrer 1908 Edmund Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West), 1908, p.297