The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

The Right Honorable Lady Mary Radcliffe (1732-98), Wife of Francis Eyre, Esq.

The Right Honorable Lady Mary Radcliffe (1732-98), Wife of Francis Eyre, Esq.

1755
(British, 1726–1770)
England, 18th century
pastel on laid paper lined with canvas
Image: 60.7 x 45.7 cm (23 7/8 x 18 in.)
Gift of Edward B. Greene 1946.463
Catalogue raisonné: Johnson 57
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Francis Cotes described his pastel works as "decorative in a very high degree in apartments that are not too large; for having their surface dry, they partake in appearance of the effect of Fresco, and by candle light are luminous and beautiful beyond all other pictures."

Description

A founding member of the Royal Academy and one of the leading fashionable portrait painters of his generation, Francis Cotes was a pioneer of pastel painting in England. Here, in her marriage portrait, the young Lady Mary Radcliffe is regal in a Turkish-inspired, peacock blue mantle decorated with gold and trimmed with ermine. Pearls and feathers adorn her hair and a décolleté scarlet bodice reveals an expanse of porcelain skin.
  • ?-1924
    Colonel Herbert Hall Mulliner [1861-1924], Birmingham
    1924
    (sale, Christie's, London, July 18, 1924, no. 2)
    after 1924-by 1937
    (P. & D. Colnaghi, London)
    1937
    (sale, Mensing & Fils, Amsterdam, April 27, 1937, no. 148)
    1937
    (A. Seligmann & Rey, Paris, sold to Edward B. Greene, Cleveland, OH)
    1937-1946
    Edward B. Greene, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    1946-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Francis, Henry S. "Three Eighteenth-Century Pastel Portraits." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 34, no. 9 (1947): 213-36. Mentioned: p. 214 25141409
    Johnson, Edward Mead. Francis Cotes: Complete Edition with a Critical Essay and a Catalogue. Oxford: Phaidon, 1976. Mentioned: p. 58, no. 57
    The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p. 185, no. 75; Reproduced: p. 184
    Chong, Alan. European and American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 45
    Jeffares, Neil. Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800. London: Unicorn Press, 2006. Mentioned: p. 134
    Jeffares, Neil. "COTES, Francis: Essay, Named Sitters A-H" Dictionary of Patellists before 1800, Online Edition. 2008. Reproduced: p. 11 undefined
  • British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
    Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000).
  • {{cite web|title=The Right Honorable Lady Mary Radcliffe (1732-98), Wife of Francis Eyre, Esq.|url=false|author=Francis Cotes|year=1755|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1946.463