MATHER BROWN | A portrait of Mrs Mary Livius (1757-1837)

By descent within the family of the sitter, until acquired by the previous owner.

The sitter was the daughter of Joseph Foster-Barham (1729-1789) and his wife Dorothea; her family held extensive estates in the West Indies, notably the Jamaican estates of Bogue, Elim, Lancaster and Mesopotamia. Mary Foster-Barham married George Livius (1743-1816) in 1785. He was born in Lisbon and served as Commissary General of the East India Company in Calcutta. The couple had one daughter, Maria Livius (1789-1864), who married the Rev. Dr John Johnson. The painting later stayed in the family until 2014, and by family tradition the landscape in this portrait is an allusion to the Blue Mountains in Jamaica, and refers to the source of her family’s prosperity.

A preparatory drawing for this portrait by Mather Brown is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (inv. no. PG 2246).¹ It further highlights Brown's ability to carefully reproduce the features of the sitter.

¹ https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/4212/