Property of Hon. Nicholas Napier Catherine Read (1723-1778)...

Hammer

£3,000

Property of Hon. Nicholas Napier

Catherine Read (1723-1778)
Portrait of Lady Sarah Lennox dressed as Congreve's 'The Mourning Bride'
Pastel on paper

Read was born in the early 18th century, and is most known for her work as a portrait-painter. She was for some years a fashionable artist in London, working in oils, crayons, and miniature. From 1760 she exhibited almost annually with either the Incorporated Society of Artists, the Free Society of Artist, or the Royal Academy, sending chiefly portraits of ladies and children of the aristocracy, which she painted with much grace and refinement. She received her education from Maurice Quentin De La Tour. Her work was shown by the Free Society (1761-1768) and the Society of Artists (1760-1772), of which she became an honorary member in 1769 along with the two other female pastel artists, Mary Benwell and Mary Black, in response to the Royal Academy accepting Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser into their respective fold.

Lady Sarah Lennox, daughter of the second Duke of Richmond and Sarah Cadogan. Sarah was the most notorious of the four Lennox sisters. 

The Mourning Bride is a tragedy written by William Congreve and premiered in 1697 in Lincoln's Inn.

Dimensions:
(Frame) 36 in. (H) x 29.5 in. (W)
(Paper) 29 in. (H) x 22 in. (W)