Sir Joshua Reynolds
Lady Stanhope as Contemplation
1764
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Sir Joshua Reynolds
Lady Stanhope as Contemplation
1764
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, 93 x 57 1/2 in. (236.2 x 146.1 cm.)
Credit Line
The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection
Object Number
1938.177
This full-length portrait of Lady Stanhope has long been acknowledged as a superb example of Reynold’s mature style, and was painted shortly before he became first president of the Royal Academy in 1768. Anne Hussey Delaval (1737-1812) was the daughter of Francis Blake Delaval and third wife of Sir William Stanhope, whom she married on October 6, 1759. Through the inclusion of such accessories as a portfolio of prints, a small plaster version of the Greek third-century b.c. Crouching Venus, and a head of Cupid, the composition defines both her aesthetic tastes as well as her social class. The importance of the work in its own era is attested to by a mezzotint of the composition by James Watson.
Conservation of this frame was made possible by a grant from the Richard C. von Hess Foundation.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1938; Mary Frick Jacobs, Baltimore, MD by purchase, 1912; Blakeslee Galleries, New York, NY, 1912; Sulley and Co., London, 1912; Charles J. Wertheimer (1842–1911), London by purchase, 1908; Mexborough Family Collection until 1908; Collection of 1st Earl of Mexborough (1719–1778) and Lady Sarah Pollington (1742–1821); Probably commissioned by Lady Sarah Pollington or Sir John Hussey Devalal (1728–1808), siblings of Lady Anne Stanhope (neé Hussey Devalal, 1737–1821), Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire, UK.
The British Institution, 1862, no. 133.
Grafton Galleries, 1883.
Grosvenor Gallery, “Catalogue of Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery,” 1884, no. 125.
The Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin, 1908, no. 70.
The Tate Britain, “Gainsborough,” October 24, 2002 to January 19, 2003, no. 40, p. 116; Circulated to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Grafton Galleries, 1883.
Grosvenor Gallery, “Catalogue of Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery,” 1884, no. 125.
The Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin, 1908, no. 70.
The Tate Britain, “Gainsborough,” October 24, 2002 to January 19, 2003, no. 40, p. 116; Circulated to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Algernon Graves et al, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. 3 (London: H. Graves and Co., 1899–1901), p. 927.
Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconography (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1939), pp. 6–7.
Ellis K. Waterhouse, Reynolds (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1941), p. 56, pl. 105.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, A Picture Book (Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art: 1955), p. 34.
BMA News (October 1958), p. 12.
Kenneth Garlick, “Some English Portraits in The Museum’s Collection,” in The Baltimore Museum of Art Quarterly 26, no. 1 (Fall 1962): pp. 4–13.
K. R. Greenfield, "The Museum: Its First Half Century," BMA Annual I, 1966, ill. p. 20.
Carter Ratcliff, John Singer Saargent (New York: Abbeville Press, 1982), p. 105.
Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984), pp. 165–167.
Stephanie Goda Tasch, Studien zum weiblichen Rollenporträt in England von
Anthonis van Dyck bis Joshua Reynolds (Weimar: VDG, 1999), p. 359.
David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 430-431.
Robyn Asleson, British Paintings at The Huntington (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 2001), pp. 132–140.
Michael Rosenthal and Martin Myrone, eds., Gainsborough (London: Tate Britain, 2002), pp. 116–117.
BMA Today (January/February 2003), p. 4.
BMA Today (July/August 2003), p. 5.
Martin Postle, "Doddington and the Delavals: collecting and display in the 1760s", Art and the Country House (2020), https://doi.org/10.17658/ACH/DNE508.
Inscribed: None.
On View at the BMA
