Tea at Trianon: Portrait of Lady Hamilton Found

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, July 26, 2020

Portrait of Lady Hamilton Found

Lady Hamilton as Ariadne by Richard Westall

From Advertiser and Times:

A LOST portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson’s mistress Lady Hamilton has been discovered at a Lymington antiques shop. The painting by Richard Westall shows Emma Hamilton gazing over her left shoulder, with her right breast exposed under a loose gown. It is thought to have been painted in 1802, three years before Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar. The oil on canvas painting was taken to antique dealer Charles Wallrock, of Wick Antiques in Lymington, by an elderly woman who had owned it for years. Mr Wallrock researched the item and confirmed it was one of four studies of Lady Hamilton produced by Westall. It is now for sale for £85,000. Nelson first met Emma Hamilton in Italy in 1793, and in 1798 he returned to Naples as a hero following the Battle of the Nile. There they fell in love and formed a relationship that Emma’s husband Sir William is said to have encouraged, given Nelson’s status. (Read more.)

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