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| Mrs. Lewis Thomas Watson (Mary Elizabeth Milles, 1767–1818) |
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| Painting in frame: overall |
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| Painting in frame: corner |
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| Painting in frame: angled corner |
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| Profile drawing of frame. W 6 5/8 in. 16.9 cm (T. Newbery) |
Artist:Sir Joshua Reynolds (British, Plympton 1723–1792 London)
Date:1789
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:50 x 40 in. (127 x 101.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Mrs. Harry Payne Bingham, 1986
Mrs. Lewis Thomas Watson was an only daughter and an heiress. The painting is one of two versions; the other is presumed to be still in the family of her descendants. Even before the first was finished, the second was begun, ordered for or by the sitter’s father. Reynolds charged his standard price of one hundred guineas for each, indicating that both were in great part if not entirely painted by him. The white muslin dress and black satin hat were the height of fashion.
Catalogue Entry
The sitter was the only daughter and heiress of Richard Milles, and married Lewis Thomas Watson of Lees Court, Kent, in 1785. Watson was descended collaterally from the Earls of Rockingham, and his mother had been a granddaughter of the second Duke of Rutland and a daughter of Henry Pelham, a former prime minister. The first of the couple's four sons was born in 1792, and in 1795 Lewis Watson succeeded his father as second Baron Sondes of Lees Court and of Rockingham Castle, Northamptonshire. He died in 1806. Three years later, Lady Sondes married Brigadier General Sir Henry Tucker Montresor. She died in Kent in 1818.
Reynolds charged one hundred guineas, his standard price from 1782 on for a fifty-by-forty-inch half-length, for each of two portraits of Mrs. Watson. She sat for the artist seven times in March 1789 and twice in May. A fifty-guinea payment is recorded in March and another in July 1789. In May 1789 there was another payment in the same amount, for a “copy,” which was “paid by Mr. Milles,” and a like sum in July of that year under the heading “Mrs. Watson; given to Mr. Mills.” Watson or his father must have commissioned the first portrait. Before it was finished, a copy was ordered for or by the sitter’s father, Richard Milles, although it is unclear who paid for it. That the second picture was in great part if not entirely by Reynolds is indicated by the fact that he asked the same amount for it. Were it to have been painted by one of his assistants, the buyer would have been charged half, but even so, it should not be assumed that the draperies and the background in either picture were painted entirely by the artist himself. Reynolds sent the first version, presumed to be the work still at Rockingham Castle, to the Royal Academy in the latter half of May 1789. The present picture, having changed hands a number of times and having been acquired through the trade, is thought to be the second. This is probably—but not certainly—the case. Richard Milles’s painting reverted through his only daughter to her sons, the third and fourth Barons Sondes, who would have owned both versions, making it impossible to determine, other than on grounds of quality, if at all, which is which.
[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009]
Copyright Image
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