Adam Buck, Irish, 1759-1833
Title: Portrait of a Lady with an Artist's Folio
Date: 1803
Medium: Watercolour and black chalk on paper
Dimensions:
39 x 29 cm
Signed: lower right: Adam Buck 1803 London.
(Irish Watercolours and Drawings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Adrian Le Harivel, ed., 1991)
Credit Line: Presented, 1975
Object Number: NGI.7738
DescriptionAn unidentified lady in a long dress stands on a terrace with a half open artist's folio on a chair. She has been called 'Countess Danvers' in the past, but there is nothing to substantiate this. There is a light underdrawing on the dress, folio and carpet in black chalk, with white highlights on the dress in gouache. The facial modelling is done as if he was still miniature painting on ivory, while the background wrought iron balustrade and carpet are less defined. In keeping with Buck's liking for Antique art, the Empire dress, shoes, hairstyle, chair in the style of Thomas Hope, and ornamental work, are all in the neo-classical style of the period.