Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)

1 portrait of Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)

Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor), by John Robinson, circa 1740-1745 -NPG 6205 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)

by John Robinson
circa 1740-1745
49 3/4 in. x 39 3/4 in. (1262 mm x 1010 mm)
NPG 6205

Inscriptionback to top

An inscription added, lower left: LADY CHARLOTTE FARMOR DAUR./OF THOS. EARL OF POMFRET,/& WIFE OF THE RT. HONBLE./WILLIAM FINCH. 2D. SON OF DANIEL/EARL OF/WINCHILSEA &/NOTTINGHAM.

This portraitback to top

The identity of the sitter and the attribution are securely based on the inscribed print by Thomas Major. Although Sewter had correctly attributed NPG 6205 to Robinson at the Leicester exhibition in 1937, he mistakenly published it in 1940 as one of Vanderbank’s best portraits. Robinson (d. 1745) derived his composition from a drawing by Alexander Vanhaecken (National Gallery of Scotland, D 2172); it recurs, with minor variations in the left hand, in another of his portraits known only through a (presumably reversed) plate by John Faber. [1]
Lady Pomfret recorded going with her daughter, Charlotte, ‘to set for her picture’ in April 1744, [2] surely NPG 6205; Robinson also painted three-quarter lengths of Charlotte’s sister Lady Sophia (1721-45) and her husband whom she married in 1744, the 2nd Earl Granville. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) J. C. Smith, British Mezzotint Portraits, 4 vols., 1878-84, 129; reworked with the title The Amorous Beauty (illus. B. l’Anson, Finch Family, 1933, f.p.84, as of Lady Charlotte Finch).
2) Lady Pomfret’s MS Diary, Leicester RO (information from Jill A. Shefrin).
3) Burley-on-the-Hill sale, Christie’s, 20 June 1947, lots 84, 85.

Physical descriptionback to top

Grey eyes, dark hair, pearl ear ring; she wears a lilac-coloured dress trimmed with white lace and pearls, and a yellow cloak; gold bracelets on her wrists.

Provenanceback to top

By descent in the Finch family at Burley-on-the-Hill, to Maj. James Hanbury;1 his sale, Christie’s, 20 June 1947, lot 81, bought Reaney and deposited in the NPG; accessioned 1993.2

1 Whose mother was Gwendolen, daughter of G. H. Finch of Burley-on-the-Hill.
2 The portrait had been deposited in 1947, presumably for the frame.

Exhibitionsback to top

Coronation Exhibition, Leicester, 1937 (9).

Reproductionsback to top

T. Major 1755 (bust-length oval, inscribed in English and German).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

View all known portraits for Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)