Royal & Noble
Royal & Noble
Property from the Curwen collections at Workington Hall, Ewanrigg Hall and Belle Isle, Cumbria
Portrait of Isabella Curwen, née Gale (1765-1820), seated full-length, wearing a white dress and blue sash, a view of Belle Isle, Lake Windermere beyond
Lot Closed
January 20, 02:47 PM GMT
Estimate
400 - 600 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Curwen collections at Workington Hall, Ewanrigg Hall and Belle Isle, Cumbria
Manner of George Romney
Portrait of Isabella Curwen, née Gale (1765-1820), seated full-length, wearing a white dress and blue sash, a view of Belle Isle, Lake Windermere beyond
oil on canvas
unframed: 127.1 x 101.6 cm.; 50 x 40 in.
framed: 141.7 x 116.6 cm.; 55¾ x 45⅞ in.
Romney painted full-length pendant portraits of Isabella Gale and John Christian Curwen in 1782-83. Alex Kidson describes the portrait of Isabella, now in a private collection, South Africa, as 'one of Romney's greatest female whole-lengths of the 1780s, combining one of his most graceful figures with a notably Romantic landscape background.'1
In the background of the full-length autograph work, as in the present painting, is Belle Isle, the largest of eighteen islands on Windermere, and the only one ever to have been inhabited.2 The house, inspired by the Pantheon, Rome, was built in 1774 and was acquired by the Curwen family not long after. They named the island after Isabella (shortened to 'Bell', and later called 'Belle'), and descendants of Isabella and John Curwen lived on the island until 1993.
1 See Kidson 2015, vol. I, pp. 168-69, cat. no. 328, reproduced in colour p. 169. A copy after the full-length is at Kendal Town Hall: https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/isabella-curwen-143167
