Medium / Material
oil on canvas, thought to be in carved & gilt original frame
Dimensions
25.00inch wide
30.00inch high
(63.50 cm wide 76.20 cm high)
Description
‘Portrait of Lady Hester Stanhope' (1776-1839)
(painted circa 1800, by a fine hand)
oil on canvas - 30 x 25ins, in original frame
According to old labels on the back, it was ‘loaned for an exhibition at the South Kensington Museum (V&A) by Mr C.E.Dalrymple of Aberdeen’ and identifies ‘the sitter as Lady Hester Stanhope’.
The life and career of Lady Hester Stanhope had its ups and downs. She started life at the top as the favorite daughter of the wealthy Lord Charles, 3rd Earl of Stanhope; was impoverished and orphaned at 27, after her father succeeded in giving away his fortune out of sympathy for the French revolutionaries of 1789; became within one year the official hostess of the Prime Minister of England, William Pitt the Younger, her uncle; was thrice disappointed in love, and fled England, never to return, at the age of 33; was crowned, according to her own account, "Queen of the Desert" as successor to Queen Zenobia of Syria in the ruined city of Palmyra; and finally died alone in poverty & squalor in her palatial retreat in the Lebanese mountains, its entrance mortared shut against her hordes of creditors.
Provenance
According to old labels on the back, it was loaned for an exhibition at the South Kensington Museum by Mr C.Elphinstone Dalrymple of Aberdeen, in 18(?)6 and identifies the sitter as Lady Hester Stanhope.
Current Condition
Very good
