The Marchioness of Northampton

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1874 November 16
Model: Honble. Mary Florence Baring (The sitter was fourteen years of age when this portrait was executed.)

Bibliography

◦ Benedetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 308.

◦ Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 180 (no. 403).

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

In a letter of13 November 1874 DGR told his aunt Charlotte that Lady Ashburton had “asked me if I would do a chalk drawing of her daughter. I assented, & she is coming to sit tomorrow. . . . The daughter - Miss Baring I suppose - or is she Lady Mary B.? (I never heard her called anything but her Christian name) - the daughter is handsome & winning to a very unusual degree, & it will be a satisfaction to draw her face.” On 16 November he wrote to Madox Brown that the drawing was in progress: “She has a real turn for art, & is generally a charming genuine creature, of the sweetest looks & temper, & though only 13, a woman right through. She seems most anxious to get some real teaching in art.” (see Fredeman, Correspondence, 74. 242, 243 ).

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