Portrait of Martha Carter, Lady Aubrey

Portrait of Martha Carter, Lady Aubrey
Portrait of Martha Carter, Lady Aubrey
Portrait of Martha Carter, Lady Aubrey
Private Collection, London / Photograph by Matthew Hollow
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
Portrait of Martha Carter, Lady Aubrey
Date
c.1745 (undated)
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Metric: 127.1 x 101 cm
Imperial: 50 x 39 3/4 in.
Collection
Private Collection, London
Wilson Online Reference
P227
Description
A young woman is shown seated in a woodland setting, full-face and three-quarter length. She has dark, shoulder-length hair and wears a shimmering silver-white dress with a square-cut, lace-trimmed edge and central bow. Her sleeves are half-length, with lace trimmings and a pendant pearl at her proper left elbow. Leaning slightly to her right she prominently holds between delicate hands a book whose spine, turned towards the viewer, bears a virtually illegible title which may possibly be construed as 'Au [...] | His [...]'
Provenance
By family descent to the present owner
Signature/inscription
Unsigned; no inscription
Labels
Verso:
[1] Old hand-written link label, centre of upper horizontal stretcher bar, covered in polythene: Lady Aubrey | Wife of Sir Thomas Aubrey | 5th Bart | dau of Richard Carter | [illegible word]
[2] Early C19 hand-written ink label with printed border, lower right corner of canvas: Lady Aubrey | Wife of Sir Thomas Au | brey and mother of | of [sic] the late Sir John Aubrey
Subject
Martha Carter was born c.1712. She was the daughter of Richard Carter, of Great Hazeley, Oxfordshire and later Chilton, Buckinghamshire and his wife, Martha Cornish. Her father was Chief Justice of the Grand Sessions of Glamorgan, Brecon and Radnor. She married Thomas Aubrey, 5th baronet (from 1767) on 10 July 1738. They had four children, including John Aubrey, later 6th baronet (1739-1826). Lady Aubrey died intestate on 5 December 1788 at Bath and was buried on 14 December at Llantrithyd, the Aubrey seat in Glamorgan.
Related Paintings
P17A Portrait of Flora MacDonald, National Portrait Gallery, London
Critical commentary
The portrait must have been painted in the mid-1740s, when Wilson was progressing confidently from a smaller oval format with interior setting to three quarter-length compositions located in a landscape. His most comparable work in this respect is P17A Portrait of Flora MacDonald.
Bibliography
J. Aubrey-Fletcher, Sir John Aubry, Sixth Baronet of Llantrithyd, 1739-1826, 1988, pp. 59, 95-96
Condition/Conservation
Relined c. 1905