Elizabeth Yates

This delightful early 19th century miniature watercolour shows Elizabeth Brunton as a young lady about to embark on a celebrated theatrical career. It is after a painting by Rose Emma Drummond that was published and widely circulated as an engraving in 1817.

Elizabeth Brunton was born into a theatrical family. Her grandfather was a theatre manager having initially trod the boards at Covent Garden Theatre whilst both her parents, as well as several aunts and uncles, had successful acting careers. Elizabeth, known fondly as ‘Lollie’, made her acting debut in King’s Lynn playing Desdemona opposite Charles Kemble’s Othello in 1815. Her London debut was in 1817 in Shakespeare’s popular comedy As You Like It. Thereafter she specialised in comic roles.

Aged 26, Elizabeth married fellow comic actor Frederick Yates who in 1827 purchased a share in the Adelphi Theatre where “Mrs Yates was extremely popular as the heroine of domestic dramas in which her acting was unrivalled”. In 1830 he took over the management of the Caledonian Theatre in Edinburgh and it is there that their only son was born. Mr Yates died suddenly in 1842 having just alighted from a train at Euston Station. Still in her forties, Elizabeth honoured her husband’s legacy by taking on the management of the Adelphi Theatre but, finding it too onerous, soon returned to the stage. She retired from acting in 1849 and died in 1860, aged 63, after a long illness. Curiously her only son did not follow in the family tradition but became a journalist though he must have inherited a love for the theatre as he was to die following a seizure taken whilst watching a play!

Adroitly painted on laid paper around 1820, this little watercolour is in fine condition having been preserved within the pages of an album. The artist is regrettably unknown. It is presented in a period decorative pressed brass frame and is labelled with the sitter’s name reverse.