She holds a flower in her right hand and in her left a number of them are held before her abdomen. These flowers symbolise her youth, beauty, and her future fertility.
BARTHOLOMEW DANDRIDGE 1691-c.1755. His initial training was at the St Martin’s Lane Academy and with Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose studio and practice he took over in 1731 after the latter’s death.
Although trained in the style of Kneller, he was amongst the first in England to respond to the innovations of the rococo which were being imported into England from France in the early and mid 1730’s. These have a liveliness of composition and lightness and freshness of palette which divides them absolutely from the style of the 1720’s.
This painting, dating from about 1735, is a very early essay in this new English Rococo style, and shows the rapid development of the artist; the following year (1736-7) he painted the daughters of the Earl of Gainsborough in what by then was a fully developed French influenced style which looks more towards Watteau than it does towards Kneller.
SIZE: 44.25 x 36.25 inc. frame.
PROVENANCE: Somerset Private Collection.
Verso: a label for the painting restorer Tim Everett of Taunton. In May 1994 Everett lined, restretchered and reframed this portrait, along with cleaning and expertly repairing several bad tears. In November 2013 the painting went to our restorer for any conservation required and he confirmed the quality of the 1990s work.
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Portrait of a Young Lady C.1735 by Bartholomew Dandridge.
