Nathaniel Hone, R.A.

In Greek mythology Terpsichore was one of the nine Muses and goddess of dance and chorus. Her name literally means 'delight in dance' and she was said to be the mother of the Sirens. This picture is probably one of the sixty-six works Hone exhibited at his inaugural one-man show in 1775; described in the catalogue as A Lady with a Lyre and accompanied by a quote from Horace's Ode to Calliope. The scene in the background would appear to be a reference to the olive groves of Parnassus where Horace describes wandering in search of poetic inspiration.

Born in Dublin, Hone had settled in England by 1742 and established a fashionable portrait practice in London. He was one of two Irish founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768, along with George Barret. However he clashed with the Academy's President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he satirised cruelly in a painting called The Conjuror (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), sparking one of the greatest art scandals of the British eighteenth-century art world. When this controversial picture was rejected by the Academy's hanging committee in 1775, Hone withdrew everything he had entered for the exhibition that year (bar one picture, the Sparton Boy), and arranged his own private show at St. Martin's Lane, which included the present picture (no. 51). 

Previously untraced, when this painting appeared at Christie's in 2011 the attribution to Hone was endorsed by William Laffan.