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View full screen - View 1 of Lot 43. Portrait of the Hon. Miss Emma (Crewe) Cunliffe seated with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, in a landscape with a kettle with burning embers at right.

Property from a Private Collection, California

John Hoppner, R.A.

Portrait of the Hon. Miss Emma (Crewe) Cunliffe seated with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, in a landscape with a kettle with burning embers at right

Auction Closed

May 25, 03:13 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 25,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from a Private Collection, California

John Hoppner, R.A.

London 1758 - 1810

Portrait of the Hon. Miss Emma (Crewe) Cunliffe seated with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, in a landscape with a kettle with burning embers at right



oil on canvas

canvas: 50 by 40 in.; 127 by 103 cm.

framed: 59½ by 50¼ in.; 151.1 by 127.6 cm.

Anonymous sale, ("Property of the Estate of a Boston Family"), New York, Christie's, 4 October 1996, lot 52 (with provenance, exhibition history, and literature that may refer to the smaller version of this composition);
There acquired by a private collection;
By whom anonymously sold ("Property from a Distinguished American Collection"), New York, Sotheby's, 31 January 2019, lot 243;
There acquired by the present owner.

This portrait of the Honorable Emma Crewe likely dates to the mid-late 1790s. Emma was born on 15 February 1780 to John Crewe, 1st Baron Crewe of Crewe Hall in Cheshire,1 and Frances Anne Greville Crewe, the daughter of Fulke Greville. Emma's accomplishments were many, particularly in the realm of music, and from a young age, she was closely compared to her mother, a famously beautiful and intelligent Whig hostess whose poise and charm attracted countless politicians, luminaries, and artists to the family circle, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and John Hoppner.2 On 21 April 1809, Emma married Foster Cunliffe Offley (1782-1832) of Acton Park, Wrexham. 


John Hoppner was an English artist who spent part of his youth in the English Royal court, where his Bavarian parents were employed. His artistic talents and intellect were recognized at a young age by no less than George III, who not only praised his skilled draughtsmanship but also offered him a royal allowance and housing accommodations with the keeper of the King’s drawings. In 1775, Hoppner entered the Royal Academy, receiving a silver medal in 1778 for a drawing and a gold medal in 1782 for his painting of King Lear. After his marriage to Phoebe Wright in 1781, he lost his royal allowance, so he shifted his attentions from his love of drawing and landscapes to establishing a career as a portrait painter.  He welcomed extremely fashionable and distinguished sitters, including the youngest daughters of George III, and by the time he was elected RA in 1795, he was working as the principal painter to the Prince of Wales. Succeeding the likes of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, and rivaling Thomas Lawrence, Hoppner would go on to be one of England’s leading portraitists and one of the most brilliant colorists until his death in 1810.   


In their 1909 publication, McKay and Roberts record a painting that closely matches the description of the present portrait, although the smaller dimensions listed suggest it could be another reduced version.3  Thomas Lawrence's slightly later portrait of Emma Crewe is today in the The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.4


1. In recognition for his decades of service to the Whig Party, John was created 1st Baron Crewe in 1806.

2. Reynolds was known to have painted Anne several times as well as Emma's son John, 2nd Lord Crewe, who posed as Henry VIII.  

3. Oil on canvas, 30 by 25 inches. See W. McKay and W. Roberts, John Hoppner, R.A., London 1909, pp. 187-188 (as exhibited at the British Institution, 1866, no. 156, where lent by Lord Crewe).  

4. Inv. no. 17.29, oil on canvas, 50 1/2 by 40 1/2 inches.  https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/226/hon-emma-crewe-cunliffe-later-emma-cunliffeoffley