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Portrait of Catherine Grey, Lady Manners

1794

Thomas Lawrence

(British, 1769-1830)

England, 18th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 280.5 x 185 x 9 cm (110 7/16 x 72 13/16 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 255.3 x 158 cm (100 1/2 x 62 3/16 in.)

Bequest of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 1961.220

Location

203A British Painting and Decorative Arts

Fun Fact

Catherine was an Irish poet who wrote of longing to escape the fashionable world.

Description

Catherine Gray, Lady Manners, rejected this portrait representing her as the goddess Juno, symbolized here by the peacock. To make up for the loss of sale, Lawrence exhibited the painting at the Royal Academy in 1794 "to be disposed of." It did not sell and remained in his collection until after his death. Despite the rejection, the painting displays all the hallmarks of Lawrence’s flamboyant style, dazzling brushwork, and innovative use of color that helped secure his role as successor to Joshua Reynolds.

Provenance

1794-1830

property of the artist, Sir Thomas Lawrence [1769-1830]

1831

(Christie's, London Sir Thomas Lawrence sale, June 18, 1831, no. 147, purchased by Samuel Woodburn)

1831-?

Samuel Woodburn; sold to Frederick John Fifth Baron Monson

?-1888

Frederick John, Fifth Baron Monson [died 1841], and his heirs, Gatton Park, Surrey; sold at Christie's, London ¹

(Christie's, London, May 12, 1888, no. 21, sold to Davis)

1888

Davis

1888-?

William, Fifth Earl of Carysfort

Lady Carysfort; by descent to her nephew Douglas James Proby

Colonel Douglas James Proby, Elton Hall, Huntingdonshire

1919-?

(Duveen Brothers)

1924-?

Jules S. Bach, New York

?-1960

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. [1874-1960]; by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art

1961-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

¹correspondence among the Monson papers now deposited in the Lincoln County archives

Citations

Williams, John. Memoirs of the Royal Academicians; Being an Attempt to Improve the National Taste. [London]: H.D. Symonds, P. M'Queen, and T. Bellamy, 1796. Mentioned:P. 28, no. 173 hdl.handle.net

Redford, George. Art Sales. A History of Sales of Pictures and Other Works of Art. With Notices of the Collections Sold, Names of Owners, Titles of Pictures, Prices and Purchasers, Arranged Under the Artists of the Different Schools in Order of Date. Including the Purchases and Prices of Pictures for the National Gallery. London, United Kindgom: Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., Printers, the "Whitefriars" Press, 1888. Reproduced: p. 454, vol. I

Gower, Ronald Sutherland, and Algernon Graves. Sir Thomas Lawrence, With a Catalogue of the Artist's Exhibited and Engraved Works. London, United Kingdom: Goupil, J. Boussod, Manzi, Joyant, successors, 1900. Reproduced: p. 454

Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Arts; A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from Its Foundation in 1769 to 1904. London, United Kingdom: H. Graves and Co, 1905. Reproduced: vol. 3

Armstrong, Walter. Lawrence. New York,, NY: C. Scribner's, 1913. Mentioned: p. 129; Reproduced: p. 150, pl. XIV

Graves, Algernon. Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century (Mostly Old Master and Early English Pictures). London: A. Graves, 1918. Mentioned: Vol. II, P. 128

Farington, Joseph, and James Greig. The Farington Diary. London, United Kingdom: Hutchinson, 1922. Mentioned: p. 44

Proby, Douglas James, Tancred Borenius, James Vaughan Hodgson, and Granville Proby. A Catalogue of the Pictures at Elton Hall in Huntingdonshire, in the Possession of Colonel Douglas James Proby. London, United Kingdom: Medici Society, 1924. Reproduced: p. 117

Garlick, Kenneth. Sir Thomas Lawrence. London, United Kingdom : Routledge & Paul,1954. Reproduced: p. 88, pl. 32

Saarinen, Aline B. The Proud Possessors: The Lives, Times, and Tastes of Some Adventurous American Art Collectors. New York, NY: Random House, 1958. Reproduced: p. 349

Garlick, Kenneth. "A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence." The Walpole Society, XXXIX (1962-64) Reproduced: p. 138

“Lady Louisa Manners, Later Countess of Dysart, as Juno.” Gazette Des Beaux Arts, February 1962, sup36. Reproduced: P. 36

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 160 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 160 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 195 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p. 200; Reproduced: p. 201

Uerlings, Herbert, Karl Hölz, and Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff. Das Subjekt und die Anderen: Interkulturalität und Geschlechterdifferenz vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin, Germany: Erich Schmidt, 2001. Reproduced: p. 116, fig. 6

Rosenthal, Angela. 2004. “Visceral Culture: Blushing and the Legibility of Whiteness in Eighteenth-Century British Portraiture.” Art History 27 (4): 563–92. Mentioned: P. 576-578; reproduced: P. 577

Badea-Păun, Gabriel. The Society Portrait: From David to Warhol. New York, NY: Vendome Press, 2007. Mentioned: p. 56-58

Bindman, David, Tim Ayers, and Chris Stephens. The History of British Art. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art, 2008. Reproduced: p. 108, fig. 61

Palmer, Caroline. "Brazen Cheek: Face-Painters in Late Eighteenth-Century England." Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (2008): 197-213. Mentioned: P. 209; reproduced: P. 211 www.jstor.org

Albinson, A. Cassandra, Peter Funnell, and Lucy Peltz. Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power & Brilliance. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art, 2010. Mentioned: p. 118-119

Montgomery, Janelle. "Every Picture Tells a Story: A Family Chronicle in George Romney's Lady Mary Every." Transactions of the Romney Society 21, (2016).
Mentioned: p. 4-11; Reproduced: p. 9, fig. 5

Day, C.A., et. al. "Thomas Lawrence's Consumptive Chic: Reinterpretting Lady Manners Hectic Flush in 1794." Eighteenth-Century Studies 49, no. 4 (Summer 2016). Mentioned: 455-474; Reproduced: p. 456, fig. 1

Exhibition history

Royal Academy, London, United Kingdom (1794)

Woman and Child in Art. National Gallery, London, United Kingdom (1913-1914)

Year in Review (1961). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 1-26, 1961).

Style, Truth and the Portrait. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 19, 1963).

Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art (September 11-October 10, 1965).

Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 22, 1983-January 22, 1984).

Thomas Lawrence: Regency, Power & Brilliance. Yale Center for British Art (organizer) (February 24-June 5, 2011).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Portrait of Catherine Grey, Lady Manners|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1961.220|author=Thomas Lawrence|year=1794|access-date=18 November 2019|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Portrait of Catherine Grey, Lady Manners

Portrait of Catherine Grey, Lady Manners

Thomas Lawrence

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