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Ann Mary Newton (1832-66)
Exhibited Royal Academy, 1863
Oil on canvas, 610 x 521mm (24 x 2012")
National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 977)
Ann Mary Newton was born in Rome
where her father, the painter Joseph Severn (1793-1879),
taught her to draw, encouraging her to copy engravings by Albrecht
Dürer, Michelangelo and Raphael. In England she studied
with George Richmond (1809-96) who lent her some of his portraits
to copy, and she was so talented at this that he employed her
for that purpose.
Aged twenty-three Ann Mary went to Paris to study with Ary Scheffer
(1795-1858), and whilst there she painted a watercolour of
the Countess of Elgin. The success of this work led to further
commissions and eventually a portrait practice in London. At
the age of twenty-six, she had displaced her father as the main
breadwinner. She painted various portraits and produced drawings
for Queen Victoria and members of the royal family, and exhibited
at the Royal Academy in 1852, 1855 and 1856. In 1861 she married
Sir Charles Newton (1816-94), who, in a peculiar type of
'bargain', offered her father the post he was relinquishing as
British Consul in Rome - Charles wished to resume working
as an archaeologist and Keeper of Classical Antiquities at the
British Museum. Ann Mary devoted the rest of her life to drawing
the antiquities in that collection for her husband's books and
lectures, and accompanying him on his excavations in Greece and
Asia Minor. She died of measles on 2 January 1866.
This rather severe, accomplished and beautiful work shows the
artist in a difficult contrapposto pose, her hands clasped over
the top of her portfolio and her eyes fixed on us. Her parted
hair is adorned with a simple red band, the colour of which is
picked up by the bows on the folio and hinted at on her lips
and the gem at the centre of her Victorian bracelet. Two rows
of big jet beads surround her neck, their size and colour echoed
in her eyes. The feigned oval in the background echoes the shape
of her curved brow. Her dress, with its delicate gold embroidery,
is rendered by a glaze of blue over red, producing a beautiful
colour. The focus of our attention is directed to the light sources
in the painting: her face, hands and the small piece of paper
protruding from her folio, the symbol of her work. The painting
was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1863, and The Times critic
commented that it was indicative of the artist's ambition that
she showed herself as an artist, not just a pretty face. Ann
Mary's obituary in the same newspaper on 23 January, three years
later, claimed 'After her marriage Mrs Newton became even a more
devoted and conscientious labourer in her art than before. Following
her husband's studies with the double interest of a devoted wife
and an enthusiastic artist.' (Quoted in D. Cherry, Painting Women:
Victorian women artists, 1993, p.40.)
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