The Right Honorable Lady Mary Radcliffe (1732-98), Wife of Francis Eyre, Esq.

1755

Francis Cotes

Francis Cotes (British, 1726–1770)

Drawings

The Right Honorable Lady Mary Radcliffe (1732-98), Wife of Francis Eyre, Esq., 1755. Francis Cotes (British, 1726–1770). Pastel on laid paper lined with canvas; image: 60.7 x 45.7 cm (23 7/8 x 18 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Edward B. Greene 1946.463 A founding member of the Royal Academy and one of the leading fashionable portrait painters of his generation, Francis Cotes was a pioneer of pastel painting in England. Here, in her marriage portrait, the young Lady Mary Radcliffe is regal in a Turkish-inspired, peacock blue mantle decorated with gold and trimmed with ermine. Pearls and feathers adorn her hair and a décolleté scarlet bodice reveals an expanse of porcelain skin. Francis Cotes described his pastel works as "decorative in a very high degree in apartments that are not too large; for having their surface dry, they partake in appearance of the effect of Fresco, and by candle light are luminous and beautiful beyond all other pictures."

Original Source

Maker/Artist: Cotes, Francis
Classification: Drawing
Formatted Medium: pastel on laid paper lined with canvas
Medium: pastel, laid, paper, lined, canvas
Dimensions: Image: 60.7 x 45.7 cm (23 7/8 x 18 in.)
Inscribed: Inscription: Inscribed, at lower left, in black chalk: Cotes pxt. / 1755
Departments: Drawings
Accession Number: 1946.463
Credit Line: Gift of Edward B. Greene
Exhibitions: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art
Rights Statement: CC0