Bonhams 1793 : Sir Thomas Lawrence (Bristol 1769-1830 London) Portrait of Maria Woodgate, bust-length,

Portrait of Maria Woodgate, bust-length, in a black dress with a white lace collar, within a painted oval
oil on canvas
76 x 63.5cm (29 15/16 x 25in).

Estimate:

£15,000 - 20,000
€18,000 - 23,000
US$ 23,000 - 30,000

Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
By family descent to James Woodgate Arbuthnot
Sold to Knoedler, 1922
Mrs. B.F. Jones, Jr., sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 4-5 December 1941 cat. no. 83
With Knoedler, New York, 1961
Acquired by the sitter's great-grandson, Colonel Hugh Douglas Peregrine Francis, M.C., T.D., M.A., of Lincoln's Inn Fields and The Rectory, Chidingstone, Kent, and thence by descent to the present owner

LITERATURE:
Walpole Society, A complete catalogue of the paintings, drawings, and pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence, vol. 29 (Glasgow, 1964)
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence (Oxford, 1989), p. 287, ill.

EXHIBITED:
Royal Academy, London, Old Masters, 1904, cat. no. 51
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Old Masters, 1925, cat. no. 38

Maria Woodgate of Somerhill was born in Tonbridge Castle, the town residence of her grandparents, in 1803. She died at sea in 1883. Her monument is in Holy Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells, raised to her memory by her father and inscribed in verse composed by James Thomas, her husband. The latter's grandfather, James Thomas of Bristol, who died in 1760, held large shares in a number of ships sailing from Bristol (at that time the second largest port in England), trading with both the East and West Indies, and was stated to be a very wealthy man. His business connections with a Master of the City of London Livery Guilds allowed him to obtain posts in the H.E.I.C for his son and two grandsons.

Further information regarding the Woodgate family can be found at www.tonbridgehistory.org.uk and copies of History of the Woodgates of Stonewall Park and Somerhill in Kent by Rev. Gordon Woodgate and G.M.G. Woodgate, printed privately in 1910, are at the Tonbridge Reference Library and the Tonbridge Historical Society Archive. The family papers are also held at the Centre for Kentish Studies.