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Dimensions: 35 by 27 1/2 in.; 90.2 by 69.8cm
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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK ESTATE
Heneage Legge, Esq. (1747-1827), Idlicot, co. Warwick, and Grosvenor Square, London, thence by descent to his nephew and the child in the portrait;
Sir John Morris, Clasemont, Glamorganshire and Southsea House Hampshire, thence by descent to his son;
Sir John Ermine Morris, D.L., thence by descent within family to;
Sir Robert Morris, thence by descent to;
Sir Ermine Morris, by whom sold to Knoedler in June 1929;
With M. Knoedler Gallery & Co., New York, and Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd., London, by whom sold in 1930 to
Colonel Carstairs, New York, by whom sold in 1930 to
Mr. and Mrs Harrison Williams, later Countess Mona Bismark, Paris;
Countess Mona Bismark Sale, Monaco, Sotheby's, November 29-30, 1986, lot 508, to Colnaghi;
With P.D. Colnaghi & Co., London and New York, from whom acquired by the present collector.
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Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, Old Master Paintings, 1882, no. 169 (lent by General C. Morris);
New York, M. Knoedler & Co., A Loan Exhibition of Sixteen Masterpieces, January 6-8, 1930, no. 7;
London, Vicars Brothers, Old Master Paintings, 1931.
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Literature: Rev. J. Romney, Memoirs of the Life and Works of George Romney, 1830, p. 141"Mrs. Morris and Master Morris, 40 [gs.], by Mr. Legge";
H. Gamlin, George Romney and his Art, London 1894, p. 97;
Sir H. Maxwell, George Romney, London 1902, p. 185;
Lord R.S. Gower, George Romney, London 1904, p. 122, no. 2;
H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney. A Biographical and Critical Essay with a catalogue raisonne of his Works, London 1904, vol. II, p. 109;
A.B. Chamberlain, George Romney, London 1910, p. 95, 306, 339;
D. Cross, A Striking Likeness. The Life of George Romney, London 2000, discussed p. 90, reproduced pl. XIII.
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Notes: The sitter Mrs. Henrietta Morris, later Lady Morris, was the fourth daughter of Sir Philip Musgrave, 6th Baronet, M.P. for Westmorland of Eden Hall, Cumberland. His wife Jane Musgrave was the daughter of John Turton, of Orgreave in Staffordshire. Henrietta Musgrave married John Morris, of Clasemont, Glamorganshire on May 26, 1774. John Morris was later made a Baronet in April of 1806, at which point Mrs. Morris became Lady Morris. John Morris was the second son of Robert Morris, Esq., of Tredegar, Glamorganshire, who claimed descent through his mother from Owen Gwynedd, Prince North of Wales. Lady Morris predeceased her husband, dying on 16th June, 1812, at Clasemont. Mrs Morris was also painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, shortly before her marriage and in the October of the following year. Their son John, depicted in the present portrait, was born July 14, 1775 at their home in Clasemont. John was their eldest son and after his father's death in June 1812 became the second Baronet. John later married Julia Byng, youngest daughter of John, 5th Viscount Torrington in October 1809. Sir John Morris died on February 24, 1855.
This lovely family portrait was painted for Heneage Legge, Esq., the brother-in-law of Mrs. Morris, and the only son of the Hon. Heneage Legge, Baron of the Exchequer, and grandson of the 1st Earl of Dartmouth. He was also painted by Romney, as were other members of his family. Legge and his wife remained childless and at the time of their death they left the picture to their nephew, Sir John Morris, the young boy depicted in the portrait. The portrait remained in the Morris family until the 1920's when it was sold by a great grandson of Sir John Morris.
Romney's diary records nine sittings for the present portrait first as "Mrs. M - 1777, May 20. 22. 23, 24, 25; 1778, Feb. 25, March 2, 9, 16" and then under, "Morris, Mr., or Master - 1777, May 15, 17, 19, 20, 23". The last three entries are listed as Master Morris, but most likely represent sittings for the child in this portrait. In 1777 it appears that Mr. Legge paid Romney 40 guineas for the portrait. Rev. John Romney, the artist's son, in his Memoirs of his father, lists Mrs Morris and Her Son as one of the pictures after Romney's visit to Italy which was of "superior merit" (see Literature below).
The present work is a rare and excellent example of Romney's mastery of the genre of the family portrait, exhibiting the artist's continued interest in the paradigms for fashionable portraiture that were formulated by Reynolds and his circle. Together with Romney's Portrait of Mrs Carwardine and her son Thomas, this is one of the frankest statements of maternal affection in English painting.
Painted shortly after Romney's return from Italy, it demonstrates the skills he achieved after time, experience and foreign travel had distanced him from his provincial past. Romney had passed through Florence in the summer of 1773 and had probably seen paintings by Raphael, such as the small Cowper Madonnna and the Madonna del Granduca, which were most likely influential for this outstanding composition of maternal love. Romney's experience in Italy had a maturing effect, and it is often argued that his best works date from the years immediately after the trip.
Romney's talent with young and elegant sitters by this date is already pronounced, and his handling of the two sitter's highly accomplished. By 1775, Romney had taken over Sir Francis Cote's grand house in Cavendish Square and was actively being sought out for portrait commissions. Romney's ambitions by this stage were further promoted by his extensive peers in the world of literature and the arts. It is in Romney's portraits of children and in particular the rare examples, such as the present work of children and their mothers, that Romney appears at his most prosaic and intimate, removed from all the burdens of characterization.
