The Spotted Veil

This elegant swan-necked young lady has soulful brown eyes and blushing cheeks. She is wearing a classical short-sleeved empire-line dress in cornflower blue trimmed with lace and tied with a narrow ribbon on the high waist. Her hair is fashionably curled and topped with a long pale pink lace veil headdress that suggests this may be the young lady’s marriage portrait.

The generously-sized portrait is presented in the original gold plated frame that is glazed reverse to show the initials GED in monogram laid on finely plaited brown hair. The artist’s rare trade label from his studio at No. 411 Strand is affixed reverse.

Nicholas Freese was born around 1761 in Birmingham to a German father and an English mother but it was to London that he moved in order to practise as an artist. It is thought that he ceased painting commercially in 1814 following the death of his only son in the Peninsular War. His daughter, Mary, was an actress; she married into the Kemble family, well-known in theatrical circles.

An interesting snippet published in John Bull (December 1825) records how Freese, then living at Stamford Street in Blackfriars, was burgled one night losing portrait miniatures and spoons worth over £40. Fortunately the thief was apprehended two miles away and the goods recovered, though the sentence that was later handed down was a harsh one.

Ivory Exemption Ref.: RLT2AF15