John Hoppner, R.A.

The sitter, Jane Elizabeth Harley (née Scott), Countess of Oxford, and her husband, Edward Harley (1773-1848), 5th Earl of Oxford, Brampton Bryan Hall, Herefordshire;

Thence by descent to their daughter, Jane Elizabeth Bickersteth (née Harley; 1796-1872), Lady Langdale, Brampton Bryan Hall, Herefordshire;

Thence by inheritance, as part of her entailed estate, to her distant relative William Daker Harley (1846-1907), Brampton Bryan Hall, Herefordshire;

Michael Arthur Bass (1837-1909), Lord Burton, Rangemore Hall, Burton-on-Trent, by 1909;

Thence by inheritance to his wife, Harriett Georgina Burton (née Thornewill; d. 1931), Lady Burton;

Anonymous sale ("From the Collection of Mrs. Harley of Brampton Brian, Herefordshire"), London, Christie's, 4 May 1951, lot 48;

Where acquired by "Dance";

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 27 May 1959, lot 79;

John and Johanna Bass Collection, New York;

By whom bequeathed to the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, in 1963 (inv. no. 63.33).

London, Royal Academy, 1797, no. 167.

ENGRAVED

W. Henderson, mezzotint, 1902.

W. McKay and W. Roberts, John Hoppner, London 1909, pp. 192-193, reproduced;

J. Farington, The Farington Diary, J. Grieg (ed.), vol. II, London 1923, p. 36;

The John and Johanna Bass Collection at Miami Beach, Florida, Miami 1973, cat. no. 33 (as Attributed to Hoppner);

K. Garlick, in M. Russell (ed.), Paintings and Textiles of the Bass Museum of Art: Selections from the Collection, Miami Beach 1990, p. 44, reproduced (as Hoppner).

Jane Elizabeth Harley (née Scott; 1774-1824) was an English noblewoman, and famously one of the leading beauties of her day. She married Edward Harley, 5th Earl of Oxford, and is pictured here with their eldest daughter, also named Jane Elizabeth (1796-1873), who later wed Henry Bickersteth, Master of the Rolls and Baron Langdale. The Countess of Oxford, who was an outspoken supporter of the French Revolution and the Reform movement, infamously engaged in a brief romantic affair with the great British poet and peer, Lord Byron. 

This beautiful portrait of mother and child was highly regarded at the 1797 Royal Academy exhibition, as “displaying, under the control of a correct judgment, all the luxuriance of the art, in composition, attitude and colour,”¹. The following year, Hoppner showed a second portrait (half-length) of Lady Oxford, which quickly became one of his most popular works; it was bequeathed by Lady Langdale to the National Gallery and remains in the collection of the Tate, London (inv. no. N00900).

We are grateful to Dr. John Wilson for confirming the attribution to Hoppner on the basis of digital images.

¹ Quoted in Monthly Mirror, June 1797, p. 344.