Mrs Harper & Child

Samuel Shelley (1756-1808) was particularly celebrated for his portraits of ladies and children and this double portrait of a mother and child in a romanticised setting with red drapes and a hint of a garden landscape richly shows why Shelley became one of the most fashionable miniaturists of his day. He loved to experiment with group portraiture and with backgrounds. This portrait was completed towards the end of his career in 1807 and depicts Mrs Harper in an empire-line dress and cornflower blue wrap seated with her eldest daughter wearing a pretty lace cap and coral necklace. Given the young age of the child, it would surely have been a challenging sitting for the artist.

The portrait is signed in full on the reverse of the ivory –

Designed and painted by Samuel Shelley. Mrs Harper and her eldest daughter Cath [?] painted 1807 – George Street, Han Square.

It is further signed on the backing board within the frame and yet again on the external backing paper.

The portrait is handsomely set behind convex glass in the original deeply recessed and ornate giltwood frame. The frame is heavy and has suffered a couple of old but very minor losses; it remains overall in excellent (although somewhat dusty) condition. The portrait is accompanied by a single-page manuscript letter, possibly addressed to the artist, from George Jackson of 113 Jermyn Street. This was discovered folded up behind the backing board. Curiously this address was a butcher’s shop in 1807 though there would also have been gentlemen’s lodgings over the shop.

Largely self-taught, Samuel Shelley entered the Royal Academy Schools at the age of seventeen and exhibited widely between 1772 and 1804. His death in December 1808 after a short illness was announced in the London papers without fanfare.

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