Social Sharing

Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend, Later Marchioness Townshend

1779-1780

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend”
Gallery 13

Narrator: Having your portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds was a little like being featured on the cover of Vogue magazine. Not only could a Reynolds portrait dazzle your visitors at home – it would often also be exhibited at London’s Royal Academy of Art – where it was seen by all of high society.
This painting shows Anne, Viscountess Townsend, who grew up in Dublin, Ireland. Chief Curator Emily Beeny:
Emily Beeny: She was one of three sisters born into a family whose wealth came from provisioning the British occupying army. And she ultimately married the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Townsend, who was basically the official who presided over the British colony in Ireland.
Narrator: Known for creating flattering, glamorous images, Reynolds emphasizes Anne’s status and beauty. She leans on a stone pedestal carved with a scene from Greek mythology. It shows a prince judging a beauty contest between three goddesses.
Emily Beeny: What's interesting is that we really only see two of those three goddesses, so I think there's maybe some suggestion that the third goddess is the sitter herself.
Narrator: Classical education – and collecting pieces of ancient sculpture – were a big part of 18th century British aristocratic identity, and Reynolds also portrays Anne wearing a dress suggesting classical robes. Her velvet and ermine cape would be worn to a royal coronation. And family estates, a foundation of power in British society, are evoked by the sweeping landscape in the background.
Emily Beeny: The grand scale of it made this approach to portraiture very well suited to new rising classes in England, that were maybe moving from more mercantile backgrounds like that of the sitter's father, into the aristocratic elite, to which her husband belonged. So these are portraits for the socially ambitious as well.
A century and a half later, objects like this one also flattered the social aspirations of a new rising global elite, namely American millionaires of the Gilded Age.
Narrator: Portraits like this were avidly collected -
Emily Beeny: - especially by Californians of the early 20th century, whose fortunes were new and who were in the market for ancestors.

Joshua Reynolds was the leading painter in
eighteenth-century England, founder of the modern British school and inventor
of a new form of grand manner portraiture suited to the tastes of a rising
imperial elite. His sitter here was raised in Dublin, where her father grew
rich supplying the English occupying army. She and her two sisters, famed for
their beauty, were known as the “Irish Graces.” At nineteen, she married George
Townshend, who had fought in Scotland and Canada before serving as Lord
Lieutenant of the Irish colony. She bore him six children and later held an
appointment in the retinue of Caroline, Princess of Wales.

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend”
Gallery 13

Narrator: Having your portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds was a little like being featured on the cover of Vogue magazine. Not only could a Reynolds portrait dazzle your visitors at home – it would often also be exhibited at London’s Royal Academy of Art – where it was seen by all of high society.
This painting shows Anne, Viscountess Townsend, who grew up in Dublin, Ireland. Chief Curator Emily Beeny:
Emily Beeny: She was one of three sisters born into a family whose wealth came from provisioning the British occupying army. And she ultimately married the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Townsend, who was basically the official who presided over the British colony in Ireland.
Narrator: Known for creating flattering, glamorous images, Reynolds emphasizes Anne’s status and beauty. She leans on a stone pedestal carved with a scene from Greek mythology. It shows a prince judging a beauty contest between three goddesses.
Emily Beeny: What's interesting is that we really only see two of those three goddesses, so I think there's maybe some suggestion that the third goddess is the sitter herself.
Narrator: Classical education – and collecting pieces of ancient sculpture – were a big part of 18th century British aristocratic identity, and Reynolds also portrays Anne wearing a dress suggesting classical robes. Her velvet and ermine cape would be worn to a royal coronation. And family estates, a foundation of power in British society, are evoked by the sweeping landscape in the background.
Emily Beeny: The grand scale of it made this approach to portraiture very well suited to new rising classes in England, that were maybe moving from more mercantile backgrounds like that of the sitter's father, into the aristocratic elite, to which her husband belonged. So these are portraits for the socially ambitious as well.
A century and a half later, objects like this one also flattered the social aspirations of a new rising global elite, namely American millionaires of the Gilded Age.
Narrator: Portraits like this were avidly collected -
Emily Beeny: - especially by Californians of the early 20th century, whose fortunes were new and who were in the market for ancestors.

Artist: Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
Title: Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend, Later Marchioness Townshend
Date: 1779-1780
Place of Creation: England
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 95 x 58 in. (241.3 x 147.3 cm)
Credit Line: Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Collection
Accession Number: 75.2.13

The sitter, Anne Townshend (née Montgomery), Marchioness Townshend (1754-1819), Balls Park, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
By descent to her daughter Anne (Townshend) Hudson (1775-1826), Bessingby Hall, Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Thence by descent [1]
[Sold to Henry Graves & Co., London, 1877]
Sold to Robert Townley Parker (1793-1879), Cuerden Hall, Preston, 1877
By descent to Captain T.A. Tatton, M.C., Cuerden Hall, Preston, United Kingdom
His sale, London, Christie’s, 14 December 1928, lot 55
Purchased by ‘Stewart,’ for 12,500 pounds
A.L. Nicholson
[Dr. Siegfried Aram, New York, by 1937] [2]
[French & Co., New York, by 1948]
Sold to Roscoe Oakes, San Francisco, 1948
Gift to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, 28 December 1962 [3]
Administrative transfer to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1972

[1] Per a letter from Mr. R. Townley Parker, dated 19 October 1877, to Henry Graves:
“The portrait of Lady Townshend is the present property of a gentleman who is the grand- or great-grandson from the eldest of her four daughters, who was the wife of Mr. Harrington Hudson. My friend, who is the sister of the present owner of the picture, writes me word that as far as she knows her brother will still sell his picture of Lady Townshend.” Cited in Graves 1901, under entry for the portrait, unpaginated.

[2] Per Los Angeles 1937, no. 91.

[3] Loaned to M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, from 8 September 1952 until its gift to the collection.
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, November–December, 1907. “The annual exhibition on behalf of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution,” no. 15.

Los Angeles Art Association, October 15–December 15, 1937. “Los Angeles Art Association Loan Exhibition of International Art,” no. 91.

Pittsburgh, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute [Carnegie Museum of Art], May–June 12, 1938. “Survey of British Painting,” no. 40.
Hamilton, Edward, The Engraved Works of Joshua Reynolds, London: Colnaghi, 1884, pg. 136.

Graves, Algernon and William Vine Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. P.R.A, vol. 3, London: Henry Graves & Co., 1899, pgs. 978–979.

Armstrong, Sir Walter, Sir Joshua Reynolds: First President of the Royal Academy, London: William Heinemann, 1900, pg. 233.

Whitman, Alfred, Valentine Green, London: A.H. Bullen, 1902, pg. 91.

“Table Talk,” The Daily News [London Daily News], February 3, 1904, pg. 8.

“Two Lost Reynolds,” The Cornishman, March 10, 1904, pg.7.

“Art and Artists,” The Morning Post, November 1, 1907, pg. 2.

“Messrs. Agnew’s Gallery: British Masterpieces,” The Globe, November 1, 1907, pg. 4.

Hardie, Martin, “Messrs Agnew’s Autumn Exhibition,” The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle, November 9, 1907, pg. 897.

Christie, Manson & Woods, The property of Capt. T.A. Tatton…, Auction catalogue, London: Christie, Manson & Woods, December 14, 1928, pg. 20, lot 55, repr. opposite pg. 20.

Carter, A.C.R., ed., The Year’s Art 1929, London: Hutchinson and Co., 1929, pgs. 241, 258.

Los Angeles Art Association Loan Exhibition of International Art, exh. cat., Los Angeles: Los Angeles Art Association, 1938, pg. 39, no. 91, repr. pg. 19.

Palmer, Arnold,“Survey of British Painting,” The Carnegie Magazine (May 1938), pg. 40, repr.

Waterhouse, Ellis K., Reynolds, London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1941, pg. 71.

Gombrich, E.H., “Reynolds’ Theory & Practice of Imitation,” Burlington Magazine 80 (February 1942), pg. 44.

Davies, Martin, The British School, London: National Gallery, 1959, pg. 80, no. 2.

Gordon, Catherine, British Paintings, Hogarth to Turner, An Observer’s Guide, London: Frederick Warne, 1981, pg. 58.

Fromme, Babbette Brandt, Curators’ Choice: An Introduction to the Art Museums of the U.S. New York: Crown Publishers, 1981, pg. 59.

Watson, Jennifer C., Reynolds in Canada, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1988, pg. 64, fig. 12.

Steven A. Nash, Lynn Federle Orr, Marion C. Stewart, Masterworks of European Painting in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1999, pg. 112, repr. pg. 113, entry by Marion C. Stewart.

Mannings, David, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, 2 vols., Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2000, vol. 1 (text), pg. 445, no. 1756, vo. 2 (plates), repr. pg. 506, under no. 1315.

Postle, Martin, “The Curious Case of the Townshend Heirlooms Sale,” Art and the Country House, Digital publication, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, November 2020: https://doi.org/10.17658/ACH/RNE571.

de Young

Legion of Honor

de Young

Legion of Honor

Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend, Later Marchioness Townshend

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend”
Gallery 13

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend”
Gallery 13

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de Young

Legion of Honor

de Young

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Social Sharing

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend” Gallery 13

Transcript

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend” Gallery 13

Transcript

Provenance

Exhibition History

Bibliography

Lux Aeterna, 1914

The Road Near the Farm, 1871

The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, 1626

Ecology of violence II, 2023

New York Evening Sun, early 1890s

Of Water and the Spirit 8, 2024

3 Sisters, 2022

Self-Portrait, 2007

Telemachus and Mentor Escape from the Island of Calypso, 1729-1745

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend”
Gallery 13

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Portrait of Anne, Viscountess Townsend”
Gallery 13