Mrs. George Horsley (Charlotte Mary Talbot, died 1828)

When this painting came to light in an exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1887, it was called a portrait of Mrs. Horsley by Romney. Since then the sitter has been identified as Mrs. George Horsley, born Charlotte Mary Talbot. Charlotte was the third daughter of Charles Henry Talbot (created first Baronet in 1800), of Mickleham, near Dorking, Surrey, and Belfast, County Antrim. She married George Horsley (1745–1792) of Epsom, Surrey, commissary of the British army in Bombay, in 1786. Edward Palmer, the lender to the 1887 exhibition, was the grandson of George Horsley's sister Mary, Mrs. William Palmer. A Mrs. Horsley is recorded as having sat for Romney on October 9, 10, 15, 16, and 18, 1787, and on August 13 and 17, September 30, and October 22, 1793 (Ward and Roberts 1904). It was therefore assumed that the portrait was by Romney, represented Charlotte Horsley, and dated to 1787.

In 1968, however, Ellis Waterhouse reattributed the painting to Chandler (verbal opinion in departmental files), possibly based on its resemblance to a half-length portrait of the Honorable Jane Montagu Douglas (property of the Earl of Home), which K. E. Maison called the finest work by Chandler that he had seen ("J. W. Chandler," Apollo 29 [May 1939], p. 241). Given Jane Douglas’s birth date of 1779, her portrait must be from the mid- or late 1790s. She wears a bonnet similar to that of the sitter in the Museum's portrait, and the palette of gray, black, and yellow described by Maison is also similar to that seen here. The arms are poorly drawn and the backgrounds negligible in both pictures. They are quite close in style, as far as can be judged from a photograph.

[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009]

Edward Howley Palmer, London (in 1887); Greville H. Palmer, Heywood, White Waltham, Berkshire (in 1912); Hubert G. Palmer, London (sold to Scott & Fowles); [Scott & Fowles, New York, until 1925; sold to Ruppert]; Colonel Jacob Ruppert, New York and Garrison, N.Y. (1925–d. 1939)

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1887, no. 18 (as "Portrait of Mrs. Horsley," by Romney, lent by Edward Howley Palmer).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," January 1–March 9, 1912, no. 148 (as "Portrait of Mrs. George Horsley," by Romney, lent by Greville H. Palmer).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Eighteenth-Century Woman," December 12, 1981–September 5, 1982, unnumbered cat. (p. 53).

Herbert Maxwell. George Romney. London, 1902, p. 181, no. 211, as Mrs. Horsley, in the collection of E. Hawley Palmer, 1887.

Humphry Ward and W[illiam]. Roberts. Romney: A Biographical and Critical Essay with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Works. London, 1904, vol. 1, p. 112; vol. 2, pp. 80–81, record appointments for sittings with Mrs. George Horsley on October 9, 10, 15, 16, and 18, 1787, but do not know the current whereabouts of her portrait; assume on the basis of documentation that there must also have been a copy of a portrait of Mr. Horsley's mother dating to 1787.

Ronald Sutherland Gower. George Romney. London, 1904, p. 119.

Arthur B. Chamberlain. George Romney. New York, 1910, p. 325.

Hermann Warner Williams Jr. "The Bequest of Jacob Ruppert." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 34 (July 1939), pp. 168–69.

Millia Davenport. The Book of Costume. New York, 1948, vol. 2, p. 787, no. 2219, ill. (cropped).

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 85.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 190, ill.

Barry Maclean-Eltham. George Romney: Paintings in Public Collections. Kendal, England, 1996, p. 37.

Katharine Baetjer. British Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575–1875. New York, 2009, pp. 200–201, no. 100, ill. (color), tentatively attributes it to John Westbrooke Chandler.