Miss Fordyce (Mrs Greenwood)

Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1762-1763

Height:

76.0 cm  (29 15/16 in.)

Width:

62.8 cm  (24 3/4 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Place of creation:

London (England)

Description

From Waddesdon Manor website: Portrait of Miss Fordyce (Mrs Greenwood) playing a lute [i.e. English guitar]. Miss Fordyce is shown in half-length pose, turned to the left with the lute in front. She reads an open music book resting on a stand on a small table to the left. She wears a diaphanous veil and a silk gown over a low-cut white chemise. Patterned draperies appear behind and to the left. Joshua Reynolds's account book shows that Walter Radcliffe paid for this portrait. Miss Fordyce may have been his mistress during the early 1760s. The portrait references Italian paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries.

People as subjects

Fordyce, Miss (active ca. 1762) (Musician portrait)

Iconclass

48C723
portrait of a musician
48C74
notation of music

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

English guitar [3107]

Musical works

legible music notation
four sixteenth notes visible on corner of page

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

6332