The Duchess of Devonshire and the Countess of Bessborough

Rowlandson, Thomas (1756 or 1757-1827)

Item type:

drawing

Date of creation:

1790

Height:

50.0 cm  (19 11/16 in.)

Width:

42.5 cm  (16 3/4 in.)

mount: 58.1 x 50.8cm (22 7/8 x 20 inches)

Technique / Medium:

watercolor with pen and black and gray ink over graphite on laid paper, mounted on, moderately thick, moderately textured, cream, wove paper

Description

This drawing depicts two noble women with voluminous curly hair and wearing elegant gowns, sitting together on a sofa, holding an open music book, and listening to music that is being played on an English guitar by a man standing behind them.
CURATORICAL COMMENT FROM MUSEUM WEBSITE:
For Rowlandson, 1784 was an annus mirabilis. That year the portraits he exhibited at the Royal Academy gave way to the comic drawings that dominated the rest of his career. He also emerged as a political caricaturist during the fraught campaign over the Westminster Election. At the center of the campaign were Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806), and her sister, Harriet, Lady Duncannon (1761-1821). Together they secured the election of Charles James Fox by persuading dithering voters to support their candidate - to the consternation of George III. "Neither entreaties nor promises were spared. In some instances even personal caresses were said to have been permitted, in order to prevail on the surly or inflexible" (Wraxall, 1836, vol. 1, p. 11). Here Rowlandson returns to portraiture six years after the notorious election to depict the two sisters relaxing together on a sofa with a musical score and a serenading guitarist. The matching white dresses, flowing lines, and gentle incline of heads suggest a harmonious relationship, underscored by the metaphor of musical harmony. Georgiana, on the left, was perhaps the most admired and reviled woman of her age, by turns Whig political hostess and fashion icon, novelist, and gambler. The latter vice she passed on to Harriet, who "however inferior to the duchess in elegance of mind and in personal beauty, equalled her in sisterly love" (Wraxall, 1836, vol. 1, p.8). Rowlandson's drawing reflects the fact that, in 1790, the only consolation the sisters had was in each other's company: that year, Georgiana moved to France to escape recriminations over her role in the Regency Crisis, and Harriet's husband had discovered her liaison with the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Ironically, the first recorded owner of this drawing was George, 5th Duke of Gordon, son of the Tory hostess Jane, Duchess of Gordon, Georgiana's chief political rival.
--Matthew Hargraves,2008-06-05

People as subjects

Cavendish, Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806) (Non-musician/dancer)
Bessborough, Henrietta Frances Spencer Ponsonby, Countess of (1761-1821) (Non-musician/dancer)

Iconclass

61BB2(GEORGIANA CAVENDISH)12
historical person (GEORGIANA CAVENDISH) - BB - woman - historical person in a double portrait
61BB2(HENRIETTA FRANCES PONSONBY)12
historical person (HENRIETTA FRANCES PONSONBY) - BB - woman - historical person in a double portrait
44B041
aristocracy; 'Aristocratia' (Ripa)
41D
fashion
48C75
making music; musician with instrument
48C78
listening to music
48C74
notation of music

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

English guitar [3107]

Musical works

illegible music notation

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Baskett, John. Paul Mellon's legacy, a passion for British art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2007) 273, no. 65, pl. 65.



Hayes, John T. Rowlandson: Watercolours and drawings (London: Phaidon, 1972) 138-139, no. 75, pl. 75.


Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel William. Posthumous memoirs of his own time (London: Richard Bentley, 1836) vol. 1, 11.


"The Cunning Eye of Thomas Rowlandson", Apollo 105/182 (April 1977) 282-283, fig. 18.

Notes

Signed and dated lower left: "Rowlandson - 1790"

RIdIM record id

6341