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- Place made
- London
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 127.0 x 101.6 cm
- Credit line
- A.M. Ragless Bequest Fund 1961
- Accession number
- 0.1942
- Signature and date
- Signed and dated c.l., brown paint "FCotes R.A./ 1769". [the first two letters "FC" conjoined]
- Provenance
- By descent from the sitter to Sir Francis Burdett, 7th Bart, Ramsbury Manor, Mansbury, Wiltshire; his sale Sotheby's, London, 2 December 1953, lot 54; bt by Spiller; Walter P Chrysler Jnr, Provincetown, Massachusetts; his sale Sotheby's London, 15 July 1959, lot 87; Leger Galleries, London by 1961; from whom bought by AGSA on the advice of HD Molesworth.
- Media category
- Painting
- Collection area
- British paintings
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WALL LABEL: facing the collection, 2022
Francis Cotes was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts in England, an organisation which was to become the pre-eminent institution for artists from its establishment in 1768 until the present day. Said to rival fellow Academicians Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, his potential was thwarted by his early death aged just forty-four.
His portrait of Elizabeth, Lady Jones although rendered in oils, reveals his early preference for pastels with its bright tonality. The attention to the fabric in Lady Jones’ attire reveals his collaboration with Peter Toms, a specialist drapery painter with whom he worked from the early 1760s. This portrait is not simply a likeness of the sitter but rather an assertion of her wealth and status: Lady Jones is opulently attired in expensive silks and lace, her outstretched hand pointing to the lands she owns.
Tansy Curtin, Curator of International Art Pre-1980
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[Catalogue] Tomory, Peter, and Robert Gaston. 1989. European paintings before 1800 in Australian and New Zealand public collections : summary catalogue. Sydney: Beagle Press.
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[Book] Radford, Ron. Island to Empire 300 years of British Art 1550-1850.