Harriot & Her Son

George Engleheart received several commissions from the Reid (sometimes mis-spelled Reed in his fee book) Family including these portraits of Harriot Reid and her four-year-old son Nevile both painted in 1793.

Harriot Gildart was born in Finchley, north London in May 1763. She was the youngest of the four surviving daughters of Thomas Gildart of Liverpool and Sarah Meyer. Her mother died when she was just four years old; her father did not remarry and indeed outlived Harriot by a decade. In August 1782, aged 20, she married Andrew Reid, a Scottish brewer and distiller. Andrew had spent much of his youth in India. Upon their marriage Andrew was made a partner in his father-in-law’s firm, now re-named Gildart & Reid, a business associated with the opium trade. During the 1790s he became a wine merchant and invested in a brewery. Harriot and Andrew had a large family of four sons and five daughters
The couple had 4 sons and 5 daughters; her youngest son was born whilst on board the Lady Jane Dundas on the Hoogly River in West Bengal.

Harriot was considered a real beauty and her portrait was painted by George Romney in the 1780s. Aged 30 in this portrait, she exudes natural poise and is elegantly attired in the latest fashions. Harriot was just 42 when she died in 1806. Her husband soon remarried and added five more sons to his already large family.

Born in 1789, Nevile was Thomas & Harriot’s third son. Shown here with tumbling curls and looking angelic in a dusky pink skeleton suit with a blue sash and a frilled shirt, he would have been just four years old. He was educated at Harrow School but left when his 18-year-old brother died whilst en route to India. Nevile then completed a stint in the Royal Navy before following in his father’s footsteps by becoming a wine merchant. His business was based at Suffolk Lane (close to the docks for ease of importing) & at Cross Lane in north London. In later times Nevile became a banker in Windsor. In 1812, aged 23, he married Eliza Maria Boddam in Somerset. The couple had 4 sons before Eliza died in 1821. Four years later Nevile married the Hon. Caroline Napier and with her had 3 more sons and 5 daughters. He died in September 1839 aged just fifty, his youngest son being just eight months old.

Apart from minor dust under the glass, both miniatures are in fine condition and reside in their original frames, each backed with hair.

Ivory Exemption Ref.: YBG2TT61