Sir Joshua Reynolds P.R.A. 1723-1792

The Marchioness of Thomond, niece of the artist, her sale, 26 May 1821, lot 35 as 'Lady with a parrot, head finished,' (bt. Phillips);
Thomas Phillips R.A., his executor's sale, Christie's London, 9 May 1846, lot 39 (bt. Farrer on behalf of Henry 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne);
thence by descent

London, Agnew's, Autumn Exhibition of Fine Pictures by Old Masters, 1954, no. 33

C.R. Leslie & T. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1865, vol. 1, p. 165, no.1;
G.E. Ambrose, Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Marquess of Lansdowne, K.G., at Lansdowne House, London and Bowood, Wilts, 1897, no. 4;
A. Graves & W.V. Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1899-1901, Vol. i, pp. 308-309;
E.K. Waterhouse, Reynolds, 1941, p. 57;
J. Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, Vol. i, p. 76;
D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds; A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, 2000, p. 189, no. 614, pl. 53, fig. 765

STRUCTURE The canvas has been lined. PAINT SURFACE The painting is in extremely good condition. There is an even cracquelure in areas where the paint is thicker (face, hair and hands) that is consistent with age. ULTAVIOLET Ultraviolet light reveals limited re-touching. Some high quality infilling work has been carried out to protect areas of cracquelure to the face, and light re-touching has been carried out to the underside of the bird in the sitter's hand. There is some light re-touching to the front of her left shoulder, her elbow, forearm and to her front. To the background there are also very light individual spots of re-touching: one lower right, one under her right hand, one to the top of the canvas and two to the right of her head. Overall ultraviolet light reveals the painting to be in excellent condition. FRAME Held in an ornate giltwood frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In this captivating and intimate portrait we are given a privileged glimpse of Kitty Fisher for which many men would pay vast sums of money. Painted in the most sensuous of lines, Kitty leans informally back into her chair. Her fur lined shawl and dress fall loosely, covering and yet revealing her young form. She gasps in delight at the exotic bird in front of her which perches on her right hand, whilst she lifts her left to touch it.

This spontaneous unfinished portrait was painted in 1763/4 by the young ambitious portrait painter Joshua Reynolds. He was fast establishing his position as the most fashionable portrait painter of the day capable of immortalising the contemporary heroes and celebrities of society; soldiers returning from the swamps of Bengal and the plains of Ohio, Admirals returning glorious from battles upon the shores of America and France. Yet the celebrity of none of these heroes could eclipse the fame of Kitty, a girl of just nineteen. By 1760 it was publicly proclaimed of her, 'You, Madam, are become the Favourite of the Public and the Darling of the Age.'[i]

Throughout the course of art history, paintings of women exemplify the very ideal of beauty and desirability, and are instantly recognisable as icons of their era. Whether it is the mysterious delicacy of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the rapacious and promiscuous wantonness of Lely's Barbara Villiers and Nell Gwyn, or Reynolds' portraits of Kitty Fisher, such portraits are a reflection and manifestation of female power, sexuality and celebrity status. Kitty was a beautiful object of fun and pleasure for men and that is precisely how Reynolds portrays her.

Born Catherine Maria, daughter of a German Silver-chaser (also recorded as a stay maker) who had settled in Soho, Kitty became the most celebrated person about London. She was a familiar figure in the boxes of the theatre, her face was often seen at the Ridotto in the Opera House, at concerts in the Rotunda at Ranelagh, promenading in the leafy walks of Islington Spa or taking tea at Marylebone Gardens. Her beauty was legendary - 'You must come to town to see Kitty Fisher,' wrote a certain Tom Bowlby to a friend in Derbyshire. But she was admired by the great as well, Admiral Augustus Keppel, Admiral Lord Anson and General Ligonier were amongst her many suitors. According to Horace Walpole she was recognized in a London park by both the young Prince Frederick William and his elder brother the Prince of Wales (afterwards George III) and on another occasion George II introduced her to William Pitt. Even the notorious rake Casanova was impressed by her magnificence and charm, while Dr. Johnson expressed regret that he had missed meeting her.

Kitty was clearly adept at nurturing her attention. She was reported to have eaten a £100 bank note on buttered bread, and so transfixed the members of White's Club they were said to have a raised a subscription to fund her extravagances. One of her favourite stunts was to fall off her horse at a particularly apt moment in order to be rescued by a gallant beau who happened to be passing.  

Kitty's gowns and head-gear were deemed the very model of elegance, her dresses sparkled with jewels. Her stately coach drawn by four grey horses, the gift of some wealthy admirer, was reported to be the most splendid in London.[ii] By 1759 her impact on contemporary society was such that Lady Caroline Fox reported the 'Kitty Fisher Style... in dress or manner, which all the young women affect now,' in a letter to her sister Lady Kildare. Numerous poems and essays were written which all paid tribute to Kitty's beauty, her lively sense of humour and sense of adventure including The Uncommon Adventures of Miss Kitty Fisher, published in 1759. One claimed that, 'Your Lovers are the Great Ones of the Earth, and our Admirers are the Mighty; they never approach you but like Jove, in a shower of Gold, ' which followed an earlier poem entitled 'Kitty's Stream or Noblemen turned Fishermen.'

Kitty Fisher was Reynolds's muse and even rumoured to be his lover. She sat for him many times between 1759 until her death at the tender age of only 26 in 1766.[iii] In order to exploit the attraction of her beauty, at least 15 oil paintings (identified as Kitty Fisher by David Mannings) and many more print reproductions of her, in particular as Cleopatra (Kenwood House, London), were produced further publicising her persona.[iv] Future female celebrities such as Emma Hamilton and 'Perdita' Robinson were to emulate Kitty and Reynolds's formula. Unlike all the other portraits of Kitty, this portrait was deliberately left unfinished. In harmony with the informality of Kitty's state of dress and the apparent spontaneity of this particular moment Reynolds uses a vibrant painterly technique.

Reynolds had recently purchased, at great expense, a large house on the west side of Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). He had placed his servants in his own livery and also commissioned a carriage splendidly painted and gilded. Reynolds's repetoir of elevating his female sitters included giving them actions or attributes of classical, mythological or literary characters immortalising them as virtuous and gracious women or loving mothers.

Concern for decorum limited the range of expressions and actions appropriate for many of his female sitters, but Kitty Fisher presented a unique and special opportunity. Here Reynolds echoes the French Rococo style which was currently in vogue in the Paris Salon, portraits such as Joseph Marie Vien's, Sacrifice to Venus or Van Loo's Offrande à L'Amour (Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum) of similar dates.  The Paris Salon was an obvious model for emulation for aspiring British Artists such as Reynolds eager to establish their own Academy. But as this 'natural' and unselfconscious portrait suggests, Reynolds's genius as a portrait painter was to discover something uniquely significant and appealing about his sitter and for Kitty as her name suggests it was her youth, her charm and her playful seductiveness.  

Almost a hundred years after Kitty's death her charms had clearly lost none of their magnetic and evidently timeless appeal. This portrait was bought by Henry 3^rd Marquess of Lansdowne (Fig.1). Having been thwarted on his first attempt in 1821 (see Thomond sale above) he waited twenty five years and finally acquired her in 1846.

The 3rd Marquess was born in July 1780, the only child of Lord Shelburne (later 1^st Marquess of Lansdowne) and his second wife, Lady Louisa Fitzpatrick. After attending Westminster school he went to Edinburgh University and then to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1801. After an abbreviated Grand Tour following the Peace of Amiens, he entered the House of Commons as M.P. for Calne in 1803 at the age of twenty-two. He quickly caught the attention of Fox and Pitt and rose to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Ministry of All Talents when still only twenty-five. He remained a highly influential member of the Whig Party in the Commons until 1809, when he succeeded his half-brother as 3^rd Marquess of Lansdowne and entered the House of Lords. For the next fifty years he was a dominant figure in the party, bringing the opposition together in parliament, and at Landsdowne House, the great family palace off Berkeley Square, and his country seat at Bowood in Wiltshire.

The family inheritance had largely been squandered through his father's extravagance and the great collection of paintings, furniture and antiquities, built up by the first Marquess at both Lansdowne House and at Bowood, had largely been sold. Indeed the great sequence of Adam rooms at Bowood had even been shorn of their doors and window frames. However the financial acumen which the young Chancellor had brought to the nation's finance was applied equally to the restitution of the family estates, a task brilliantly accomplished. So much so that by the second decade of the nineteenth century not only were the houses restored and embellished by Sir Robert Smirke, Charles Cockerell, and Charles Barry, but the losses to the collections had been more than put right.

Lansdowne was both a great collector and a great patron - showing an intuitive eye when aquiring works of art of the greatest quality, although as that perceptive commentator Mrs Jameson wrote in 1845, 'without setting forth any pretension of connoisseurship, without apparently making it a matter of ambition or ostentation to add a gallery of pictures to the other appendages of rank - guided simply by a love of art, and a wish to possess what is beautiful in itself, for it's own sale, Lord Landsdowne has gradually collected.'[v]

His independence of judgement is best seen in his interest in later eighteenth century English art: an avant garde taste for the time. He had a particular admiration for Reynolds, who had painted his father William Petty Fitzmaurice, Earl of Shelburne (Bowood Collection) which he acquired together with the portrait of his mother in Lady Ilchester and Her Two Children (Bowood House) at Lady Thomond's sale in 1821. The twelve other paintings by Reynolds which he acquired had no family connection but were simply bought as outstanding examples of his favourite artist's oeuvre.[vi] In 1813 he acquired Mrs Baldwin (Compton Verney, Fig 2.) sold in these Rooms on 1 July 2004 for £3,365,600, a world record for a female portrait by a British artist which has not yet been surpassed.

 

[i] S. Trusty, An odd letter, on a most interesting subject to Miss K Fisher, recommended to the perusal of the ladies of Great Britain, 1760, p. 6
[ii] H. Bleackley, Ladies Fair and Frail, 1926, p. 77
[iii] Her name occurs in Reynolds' books from 1759-1766.
[iv] Kitty Fisher, Petworth Sussex, 1759 (M. 611) (engraved), Kitty Fisher, as Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl, Kenwood, Iveagh Bequest, 1759 (M. 612) (engraved), Kitty Fisher Cradling a Dove, Private Collection (Mannings, 613).
[v] See Mrs A Jameson, A Handbook to the Public Galleries of Art in London, 1844.
[vi] At Lady Thomond's sale he also purchased a Young Girl with a Scarlett Muff and Lady Ilchester. Seven years later he managed to acquire the prime version of The Strawberry Girl, from Lord Carysfort's sale. In 1840, 'his friend Lord Holland bequeathed him Hope Nursing Love and in the same year he bought the Portrait of Horace Walpole (National Portrait Gallery) and the Portrait of Lady Sarah Bunbury. He also went on to acquire, Lady Rudge, Lawrence Sterne (National Portrait Gallery London), Garrick (Fulger Library, Washington) and Mrs Billington as St. Cecilia (Beaverbrook Foundation).