Caroline Elizabeth Holland

With her long blonde curls, rosy cheeks and blue eyes, young Caroline Elizabeth was an archetypal English rose. Set against a blue sky landscape, she is shown wearing a wide-shouldered dress trimmed with broderie anglaise and tied with a purple silk sash.

The portrait is signed and dated on the reverse – ‘Painted by Sir W. C. Ross RA Miniature Painter to the Queen, 1855’ and is presented in a traditional papier-mâché frame with an acorn hanger. A hand-written label names the sitter as Caroline Elizabeth Holland.

William Charles Ross (1794-1860) grew up surrounded by paint and paintbrushes as both his parents were professional artists so, having displayed early talent, portrait painting was a natural career path for him. At the age of twenty, he trained under miniaturist Andrew Robertson and soon after established his own studio. Ross had a prolific career with royal and fashionable society patronage and was appointed Miniature Painter to Queen Victoria.

Ivory Exemption Ref.: YRZ2NW1R