GEORGE ROMNEY | PORTRAIT OF ANNE, MARCHIONESS OF TOWNSHEND, FULL LENGTH, IN A WHITE DRESS WITH A WHITE MUSLIN CAP

George Massy Beresford, Macbiehill;

By whom sold, London, Christie's, 25 June 1898, lot 94, where unsold;

Acquired from George Massy Beresford by Marcia Amelia Mary Pelham, Countess of Yarborough, Brocklesby Park;

Thence by descent to her son, the Hon. Marcus Pelham;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 6 May 1926, lot 11 (where unsold);

With Duveen;

Mrs. Georgina Blois;

From whom acquired by Mrs. William G. Lowe, New York, 1931;

Thence by descent in the family;

Anonymous sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 28 April 1956, lot 486;

There acquired by Billy Rose, New York;

Probably, anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 17 April 1964, lot 49, to Leylan;

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 19 May 1994, lot 191;

There acquired by the present owner.

L.H. Cust, "The Romney Exhibition at the Grafton Gallery," in Magazine of Art, August 1900, p. 452;

Sir H. Maxwell, "George Romney," in Chambers Journal, 13 September 1902, p. 643;

H. Maxwell, George Romney, London 1902 p. 93;

H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney, London 1904, vol. II, pp. 159-160;

A. Chamberlain, George Romney, London 1910, p. 327;

A. Kidson, George Romney: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven 2015, vol. II, p. 584, no. 1311, reproduced. 

This grand, full length portrait of Marchioness Anne Townshend was the culmination of a series of four portraits that George Romney painted of her over a fifteen year period.¹  It took him almost fifteen months, beginning in May 1793, and at least ten sittings with Anne before he completed this work. In April 1794, while in the midst of painting this portrait, Romney fell severely ill, and once he recovered, he reworked the present composition to add more of a narrative.  Anne is shown here brightly illuminated within a shadowy rotunda, leaning on a plinth topped with a censer. She is, as Kidson notes, a "beacon of light," as she looks directly out at the artist, her sympathetic expression and emotional gesture, seemingly in response to Romney's fragile health, imbuing her likeness with a notable degree of poignancy.

Renowned for her beauty, Anne Townshend (?1753 – 1819) was a close friend and patron of Romney, and she is featured prominently as the Montgomery sister on the right in George Romney’s Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen, today in the Tate Britain.² Anne was the eldest daughter of Sir William Montgomery, 1^st Bt of Macbiehill, Peebles, and she bore six children with her husband George, Viscount Townshend, whom she married in May 1773. 

1. The first of the four portraits, datable to about 1782 is untraced today; the second, which is a half length portrait painted in 1784, is today in the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame; the third, a three-quarter length portrait painted between 1787 and 1792, is today in a private collection. See Kidson, vol. II, pp. 582-583, cat. nos. 1308-1310, reproduced.  

2.  https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/reynolds-three-ladies-adorning-a-term-of-hymen-n00079#3