Lot 336
  • 336

Daniel Gardner

Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 GBP
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Description

  • Daniel Gardner
  • Portrait of Caroline Rumbold, later Mrs Adolphe-Lazare de St Clair (1786-1848)
  • Pastel, held in original frame
  • 386 by 306 mm

Provenance

By descent within the sitter's family  

Catalogue Note

Caroline Elisa Maria Rumbold was the eldest daughter of Sir George Rumbold, 2nd Bt. and Caroline Hearn. Sir George was a diplomat who served as British minister to Hanover between 1803 and 1806, while her paternal grandfather, the 1st Baronet, had been Governor of Madras from 1777 until 1780.

Her father died in 1807 and in 1810 her mother moved to Paris with Vice-Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, whom she had married in October of that year. Caroline moved there too, and in February 1828 she married Adolphe-Lazare de St Clair. He was born in Lyon in 1786 and later served as a colonel of the Garde du Roi. He died in Colombo, Ceylon in 1847 while Caroline died in Paris in February 1848.

Drawn by Gardner in London, Caroline is a young girl. In later life, she was described by one contemporary as being 'flirtatious and extravagant’.1

1. S. Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters, 2 vols., 1855, on-line