Property of a Gentleman Sir Henry Raeburn (1756 - 1823) Mrs...

Hammer

£30,000

Property of a Gentleman

Sir Henry Raeburn (1756 - 1823)
Mrs. David Monypenny, Maria Sophia Abercromby, Lady Pitmilly (1781 - 1842), circa 1811
Oil on canvas
In a carved giltwood frame
Gallery labels verso

Lot Essay:
Raeburn painted several portraits of the Abercromby family, including Sir George Abercromby and his wife.  Maria Sophia Abercromby was the third daughter of Sir George Abercromby, 4th Baronet of Birkenbog in Fyfe and his wife, Jane Ogilvy, the eldest daughter of Alexander, 7th Lord Banff. In 1810 she married the Hon. David Monypenny (born 1769). He became Solicitor-General on 22 February 1811, was admitted a Lord of Session on 25 February 1813, when he took the title of Lord Pitmilly, and also became a Lord of Justiciary. 

Provenance:
Of particular interest is the 20th Century provenance of the present work, which was purchased in 1917 by Edward Townsend Stotesbury for Whitemarsh Hall in Philadelphia, where it hung in the drawing room. Stotesbury was from a Philadelphia Quaker family and became Philadelphia’s wealthiest citizen, an international banker who rose to senior partner of Drexel & Co. and J. P. Morgan & Co.  Between 1916 and 1921 he built the vast neo-Palladian Whitemarsh Hall at Chestnut Hill as a present to his wife. The famed American industrialist Henry Ford, after a visit to Whitemarsh Hall, is quoted as having said: 'It was a great experience to see how the rich live.'

With Ralston Galleries, New York, 1917, by whom acquired in the United Kingdom;
Edward Townsend Stotesbury, Whitemarsh Hall, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, until his death in 1938;
Eva Stotesbury;
Parke Bernet Galleries Inc., New York; Paintings, furniture and works of art from the collection of the late Edward T. Stotesbury, Philadelphia. Saturday November 18, 1944, lot 1;
The Fitzgerald Family;
Sotheby’s, New Bond Street, London, 13 November 1996, lot 69 (as 'Portrait of a Lady');
Private collection, United Kingdom

Exhibition History:
The Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1932 (as Lady in Red Cloak)
The California Palace of the Legion of Honour, San Francisco, 1941
Exhibition of paintings and works of art from the collection of the late Edward T. Stotesbury, James St. L. O’Toole Galleries, New York; April-May 1941

Literature:
Sir Walter Armstrong, Sir Henry Raeburn, 1901, page 95 
Henri Marceau, The Stotesbury Collection, The Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin, vol. xxviii, no. 151, December 1932, page 21 and illustrated on the opposite page (as Lady in Red Cloak)
The Connoisseur, August 1941, vol. 108, page 79

Dimensions:
(Canvas) 29.5 in. (H) x 24.5 in. (W)
(Frame) 38 in. (H) x 32.75 in. (W)