An Interesting Story (Miss Ray)

Wood was born in Suffolk and entered the Royal Academy schools in 1785. His manuscript list of sitters, which is in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, shows that in the years from 1790 to 1808 he painted 1,211 miniatures. This list is of immense value for the study of the technique of late-eighteenth-century miniaturists. He gives details of the pigments and methods he used in each portrait and frequently appends a tracing which gives an outline of the sitter's features. Wood died in London.

The miniature is backed by a card with an ornamental border inscribed in ink by the artist DJDS / By / Will:Wood / Cork Strt. / Lond. / 1806. [and above] No 6160. The entry for no. 6160 in the artist's ledger runs:

6160 Half length of a girl reading:

the face in shadow. about 17.—studied from Miss / Ray.—Begun, 14 Decr, 1806.—On a piece of good / ivory; gumm’d to white card.—Prepared with pow- / dered pumice.—Outlin’d with common ink, & a / steel pen.—Ink wash’d off next day; so as to leave / only a grey stain.—

I believe all the colours are perfectly durable.— / Bright reds are 520, 521 and 525. Ground is chiefly of / 518. 479·white. Gum arabic.

Red drapery of 438 and 521.

Sent to British Institution, 10th January, 1807 and / entitled “An Interesting Story”

Parallelogram: 4 x 5 in. Sight 3 7/8 x 4 7/8.

The numbers in this description are the artist's code for his pigments; there is no key to them in the ledgers. Wood exhibited three miniatures at the British Institution in 1807 from 8 Cork Street. If Wood had intended this miniature to be read as a portrait, he would not have shown the young woman's breast bared. The anatomy is awkward and would not have been studied from the model.

[2016; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

Moses Lazarus, New York (until d. 1885); his daughters, Josephine and Sarah Lazarus, New York (1885–1888/95)

London. British Institution. 1807, no. 130 (as "'An interesting story'").

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Four Centuries of Miniature Painting," January 19–March 19, 1950, unnumbered cat. (p. 7, as "Miss Ray").

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 165.

George C. Williamson. The Miniature Collector: A Guide for the Amateur Collector of Portrait Miniatures. London, 1921, p. 290, lists "Ray, Miss (as an Interesting Story)" as no. 6160 in Wood's ledger of sitters.

Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 10, 13, 146, no. 165, colorpl. 165 and ill. p. 147, give the full entry from Wood's ledger, where this work appears as no. 6160 [see Ref. Williamson 1921]; note that the miniature is not intended as a portrait.