The well depicted three-quarter length portrait of a lady; painted in oils on canvas:, the sitter wearing a lace bonnet and black dress and holding a book, with slender hands and an amicable face, sitting on a period parlour chair, the whole on a fawn coloured ground, presented in a later gilded moulded frame, and surviving from the latter half of the nineteenth century.
The Estate of the late Joe & Mary Hope. Joe Hope, former head of Fine Art, Bath Academy of Art, Corsham Court, 1968-81
Joe Hope was head of Fine Art at the Bath Academy of Art (then located around the estate of Corsham Court near Bath) from 1968 to 1981. Both he and his wife Mary had trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and this picture was part of their privately owned collection.
A picture with a serene quality to it that would work well as part of a cluster of portraits.
The picture is in un-restored condition and we love it as it is. There are no major losses and the canvas has quite an extensive amount of bitumen deposits to its surface, where it has been placed near a fire probably for many years. To the reverse there is an inscription “portrait of an unknown woman by an unknown artist”.
By appointment only.
