In Memoriam

Dating to the 1770s, this poised portrait stems from Ozias Humphry’s early career before he ventured to India. It shows an elegant young lady in a décolleté dress edged with white lace and trimmed on the shoulders with gold braid. Her hair is unpowdered and falls in soft curls over her shoulder.

The portrait is set in a gold frame with chased decoration to the sides and on the reverse which is inset with a sepia memorial miniature featuring a classically dressed grieving lady by an urn on a tomb surrounded by tall cypress tress pointing towards heaven. Overhead hovers a winged cherub holding a crown as a symbol of victory over death.

Born and raised in Devon, Ozias Humphry arrived as a teenager to study art in London. Following the death of his father, he became apprenticed to the miniature painter Samuel Collins in Bath but Collins proved unreliable and so the relationship was officially dissolved. Humphry’s first commission – to copy an unfinished miniature by Collins – was so well received that, rather than the requested three guineas price, the recipient gave him a gold coin. Flushed with success, Humphry had a special purse made for the coin and kept it by him thereafter as a lucky charm.

Ivory Exemption Ref.: JN97FFGT