Museum number
1996.5
Object
Framed oil painting: Henrietta Laura Pulteney (1766-1808) by Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807), oil on canvas c. 1777
Description
Portrait of a young girl in a wooded landscape. She stands in the foreground wearing a floor-length white dress with square neck-line trimmed with lace and a long pink sash. Her hair is reddish in colour and she wears a decorative white hat with blue ribbon trimming, small pink and blue flowers and a black feather. Her head and gaze are turned to the left of the painting toward a branch with dark flowers (Convulvulous?), which she is pulling down with her right arm. In her left hand she holds a basket containing various flowers, including a pink rose. The figure of the girl is flanked on the right of the picture by a tall tree. There are further trees and greenery behind the figure and, between the figure and the tall tree, a view of distant landscape and a hill.
Materials
Oil
On display?
Yes

Further description

Simple name
Painting
Dimensions
framed: 7.5000cm (d) x 92.0000cm (h) x 79.7000cm (w)
regular: 61.8cm (h) x 74.3cm (w)
Henrietta Laura Pulteney (1766-1808) Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) Oil on canvas, about 1777 Henrietta Laura Pulteney inherited the vast Pulteney estates in 1782. She was the daughter of Sir William Pulteney (né Johnstone), a Scottish aristocrat who owned plantations in the Caribbean and substantial property in North America. With her father, she created the elegant new town at Bathwick including Great Pulteney Street and Sydney Gardens, where the Holburne Museum now stands. The Swiss-born artist Angelica Kauffman has shown the child Laura plucking flowers in a wood, dressed in white. The artist’s almost miniaturist eye for detail reveals the luxury of the heiress’s outfit: a fragile embroidered gown, silk sash and cap decorated with lace, frills and feathers. 1996.5 Purchased with grants from the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund, 1996

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