Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue
Anna Seward (1742-1809), Writer and poet
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Writer, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’, daughter of Thomas Seward, prebendary of Lichfield; copious poetess and correspondent, the friend of Erasmus Darwin and Walter Scott (who was to edit her verse, while confiding that most of it was ‘absolutely execrable’); six volumes of selected letters ‘that, after I had written them, appeared to me be worth the attention of the public’, were published on her instruction in 1811.
‘a handsome likeness of those full-length pictures of Queen Elizabeth, where the painters gave her majesty all the beauty they could, consistent with the character of her face. The Muse laughs at herself as fat and lame; yet the connoisseurs in woman would still pronounce her handsome’ (William Hayley, 1781).
‘Her eyes were auburn, of the precise shade and hue of her hair, and possessed of great expression’ (Walter Scott, 1810).
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.
‘a handsome likeness of those full-length pictures of Queen Elizabeth, where the painters gave her majesty all the beauty they could, consistent with the character of her face. The Muse laughs at herself as fat and lame; yet the connoisseurs in woman would still pronounce her handsome’ (William Hayley, 1781).
‘Her eyes were auburn, of the precise shade and hue of her hair, and possessed of great expression’ (Walter Scott, 1810).
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.