Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke

Description

Sisters Amabel (left) and Mary Jemima are shown playing on the grounds of their family’s country estate outside London. They wear loose, flowing garments invented specifically for the portrait rather than their usual outdoor dresses. Their father commissioned the painting to hang in the family’s city home in London’s St. James Square and it highlights their status as landowners. Joshua Reynolds painted this portrait after his return from Italy, where his studies inspired him to incorporate classical references. The famous ancient Roman Statue of a Girl with a Dove is echoed in Mary Jemima’s pose as she shields a dove from the family dog.

Provenance

Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston, later Second Earl of Hardwicke [1720-1790], St. James Square, London, by descent to his daughter Amabel Yorke, later Hume-Campbell, 1st Countess de Grey (c. 1761-1790); Amabel Hume-Campbell, 1st Countess de Grey [1751-1833], by descent to her great niece Anne Florence de Grey (1790-1833); Anne Florence de Grey, Baroness Lucas [died 1880], by descent to her son, Francis Thomas de Grey (1833-1880); Francis Thomas de Grey, Seventh Earl Cowper, Seventh Baron Lucas and Tenth Baron Dingwall [1834-1905], by descent to his nephew Auberon Thomas Herbert (1880-1905); Auberon Thomas Herbert, Eighth Baron Lucas and Eleventh Baron Dingwall [1876-1916], by descent to his sister Nan Ino Cooper (1905-1916); Nan Ino Cooper, Ninth Baroness Lucas and Twelfth Baroness Dingwall [1880-1958], consigned to sale at Christie's London (1916-1922); (Christies’s, London, May 26, 1922, lot 78) (1922); (Agnew, London); (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); John L. Severance, Cleveland, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1942-)

Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke

Joshua Reynolds

c. 1761

Accession Number

1942.645

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

Framed: 224.5 x 201.3 x 11.4 cm (88 3/8 x 79 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 196 x 170 cm (77 3/16 x 66 15/16 in.); Former: 223.5 x 198 x 9 cm (88 x 77 15/16 x 3 9/16 in.)