Hester Lynch Piozzi (née Salusbury, later Mrs Thrale)

1 portrait matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Gloves and gauntlets'

Hester Lynch Piozzi (née Salusbury, later Mrs Thrale), by George Dance, 1793 -NPG 1151 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Hester Lynch Piozzi (née Salusbury, later Mrs Thrale)

by George Dance
1793
9 3/4 in. x 7 1/2 in. (248 mm x 191 mm)
NPG 1151

Inscriptionback to top

Signed and dated in pencil: July 6th 1793 bottom left, and Geo: Dance. bottom right; laid down on a contemporary washed mount lettered: HESTHER LYNCH PIOZZI.

This portraitback to top

On 19 July 1793 Mrs Piozzi wrote that ‘Mr Dance the Profilist is making a Collection of celebrated Heads; I have sate, but nobody knows me they say, so I am to sit again’. [1] She was presumably referring to NPG 1151, which is dated 6 July, but she did not mention the pendant drawing of Gabriel Piozzi, NPG 1152, which is dated 17 July. On 20 July Joseph Farington, accompanied by Samuel Lysons and George Dance, breakfasted with Mr Piozzi at Streatham, and ‘Mr Dance made drawings of Mr & Mrs Piozzi’, presumably a second, untraced, pair. Copies of the NPG drawings (repeating the inscribed dates) were sold Sotheby’s, 21 November 1978, lots 270-71.
Ribeiro has contrasted Mrs Piozzi’s appearance in NPG 1151 with that in the earlier portrait, NPG 4942: the wide frizzed coiffure is retained but the dress is much simpler, a robe à l’anglaise. [2]

Footnotesback to top

1) E. A. & L. D. Bloom ed., The Piozzi Letters, II, p 128.
2) A. Ribeiro, The Gallery of Fashion, 2000, p 144.

Provenanceback to top

The artist’s grandson, the Rev George Dance; his sale, Christie’s, 1 July 1898, lot 105, bought Colnaghi for the NPG.

Exhibitionsback to top

Johnson, Birmingham, 1959 (184); George Dance, Geffrye Museum, 1972 (89); George Dance, Bath, 1982; Johnson and the Midlands, Lichfield, 1984 (44); Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, Tulsa, Miami, Washington, Ottawa, NPG, Manchester, Carlisle, Canterbury, 1993-95 (39), withdrawn for Romantic Women Writers, Dove Cottage, the Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere, 1994-95 (hors catalogue).

Reproductionsback to top

W. Daniell (A Collection of Portraits sketched from the Life since the Year 1973 by George Dance Esqr. R.A. and engraved in imitation of the Original Drawings by William Daniell, A.R.A., 2 vols, 1814).


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 George Dance

View all known portraits for Hester Lynch Piozzi (née Salusbury, later Mrs Thrale)