Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke
Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke, Joshua Reynolds (British, 1723 - 1792) c. 1761
1942.645
Gallery 11-12 | European Art: Domestic and Public Art in Britain, 1600–1870
Philip Yorke commissioned this portrait of his daughters Amabel (left) and Mary Jemima to hang in their city home in St. James’s Square, London. To signal the family’s status as land owners, both girls are perhaps portrayed on the grounds of their family’s country estate in Bedfordshire, about 55 miles north of London. Captured as if interrupted in a moment of play, this tender, yet impressive portrait of the Yorke girls is a prime example of a painting intended for a private setting, as opposed to the bolder tones and dramatic poses found in paintings intended for public exhibition, such as Thomas Lawrence’s full-length portrait of Catherine Gray, Lady Manners, also in this gallery.
Images Copyright © the artist, their estate, and/or the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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