Garnets and Roses

Dressed in cornflower blue to reflect the colour of her eyes and with a floaty lace wrap over her arms, this young lady has chosen to wear a sparkling garnet demi-parure of necklace and earrings. Perhaps garnets were her birthstone. Her coiffured hair is secured with a tortoiseshell comb and decorated with a spray of pink roses.

The miniature is signed vertically along the left edge in gold – W Hudson 1823 – and is set with convex glass in a period brass frame with a decorative edge. Both the miniature and the frame are in excellent condition.

William C. Hudson (1782-1850) painted flower miniatures initially before turning to portraiture in 1813. He exhibited 213 miniatures between 1803 and 1846 and worked from a studio at New Bond Street in London during the 1830s.