Detail of Lady Harriet Maria Conyngham by Lawrence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 2011

Artist: Sir Thomas Lawrence (English, Bristol 1769–1830 London)

Title: Lady Maria Conyngham (died 1843)

Date: ca. 1824–25

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 36 1/4 x 28 1/4 in. (92.1 x 71.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Jessie Woolworth Donahue, 1955

Accession Number: 55.89


Catalogue Entry:

The sitter’s parents, Henry and Elizabeth Conyngham, were regularly at court in the 1820s, from George IV’s accession until his death in 1830. Henry Conyngham had been created Viscount Slane, Earl of Mountcharles, and, in 1816, Marquess Conyngham in the peerage of Ireland through the influence of his wife, who in 1820 became the future king’s final mistress. Lawrence painted a portrait of Lady Conyngham in 1823 (formerly Slane Castle, County Meath; destroyed in a fire). Together with his portraits of George IV’s sisters, Mary and Amelia (Royal Collection), and of Lady Conyngham, this picture of her younger daughter, Maria, was placed in the king’s bedroom at St. James’s Palace in 1826. Lawrence had painted Maria’s brother, Francis (private collection), for the Royal Academy exhibition of 1823, and her sister, Elizabeth (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon), for Christmas that year. It seems likely that the present portrait of the youngest child, of whom the king is reported to have been very fond, dates to 1824 or 1825. The portraits of the Conynghams were paid for by George IV but were probably intended for the sitters, in whose family at Slane Castle they descended [see Ref. Millar 1968]. Lawrence charged two hundred and ten pounds for this one and three hundred and ten pounds for each of the other three.

In 1832 Maria Conyngham became the first wife of Sir William Meredyth Somerville, fifth Baronet and member of Parliament for Drogheda from 1837 until 1852, who was later raised to the peerage of Ireland as Baron Athlumney. She had two children, a son who predeceased her and a daughter; she died in 1843. Her appearance in the portrait and the date of her marriage suggest that she was born about 1812.

The picture displays Lawrence's mastery of design and the fluidity and panache of his technique. A dog identified by contemporaries as a collie balances the triangular design at the lower left. A copy belonged to Solomon R. Guggenheim and to the Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and was sold at Sotheby's, London, March 17, 1971, no. 86, as by Lawrence. [2010; adapted from Ref. Baetjer 2009]


Gallery Label:

Lady Maria's father was created Marquess Conyngham in the peerage of Ireland in 1816. This was through the influence of his wife, Elizabeth, who in 1820 became the final mistress of the future King George IV of England. Husband and wife were in constant attendance at court. Between 1823 and 1826 the Marchioness and her three children sat for Sir Thomas Lawrence, the leading portraitist of the era. George IV was fond of Maria Conyngham and the present portrait hung for a time in his bedroom at one of the royal residences, St. James's Palace. The composition of the girl's portrait is elegant and the paint is applied to the canvas in broad, creamy strokes, with great assurance. However Lawrence was not greatly interested in drawing and her fingers are oddly jointed and disproportionately long.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/europe...