Motherhood

Beautifully rendered in pastel, this portrait shows a young Regency mother seated with her child before a landscape view of trees by a lake silhouetted against a darkening evening sky. Dressed in a satin empire-line dress beautifully trimmed with trailing fine lace, her elaborately plaited and curled hair is decorated with a white rose. Seated on her lap, the baby is wearing a pretty frilled cap and a white dress trimmed on the shoulders with pink ribbon appropriate to a little boy as the Georgians considered pink to be a strong masculine colour whereas blue was better suited to girls because of its ass0ciation with the Virgin Mary. Charmingly the baby is ignoring his large rattle as it is his mother’s beaded bracelet that has engaged his attention. Sadly their names and stories have been lost to history.

Pastel on paper set in the original gild wood frame with pie-crust edging. The portrait is in excellent condition; the frame slip has age-old dust and light tarnishing that adds to its patina.

The daughter of a blacksmith, Ellen Wallas married the portrait artist James Sharples as his third wife in 1787. The couple had two children, both of whom were to also take up painting. Around 1794 the family emigrated to the United States where there was a growing demand for portraiture. It was in Philadelphia in 1797 that Ellen began to draw portraits professionally. In 1801 the family returned home but in 1809 they re-visited New York where James died in 1811. This prompted Ellen’s permanent return to England; she and the children settled in Bristol. Upon her death in 1849 she endowed the Bristol Academy for the Promotion of Fine Arts.