Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton (c 1765-1815), as Circe
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Rectangular oil painting in portrait orientation depicting a female figure in full-length, dressed after the antique, seemingly striding forwards out of the canvas with her left arm raised, her head bowing slightly to engage the viewer. The sitter is Emma, Lady Hamilton (1765-1815), shown as the Greek Mythological character 'Circe', who fed travellers on poisoned meat which would turn them into pigs, she is encountered in "The Odyssey". She is often, as here, shown carrying a wand or stick for driving the pigs to their sties. Circe stands in front of a rocky outcrop, or at the mouth of a cave. To her left there are the heads of two wolves emerging from the darkness behind her, in the distance, to Circe's right, there is a boat at anchor in a bay.
George Romney painted Emma Hart many times, drawn to her vivacious personality as well as her appearance. He painted simple portraits in contemporary dress as well as many of her in the guise of allegorical, mythological or religious figures. This is the first portrait Romney made of Emma in such a guise, painted in July and August 1782.
Romney was the only fashionable portrait painter of his day who was not a member of the Royal Academy. He learnt his art in the North of England, and came to London in 1762. In 1782, a friend and patron, Charles Greville, brought his new mistress, Emma Hart, to Romney. From 1782-1791, Romney painted Emma many times. Romney did not paint Emma again until December 1783.
In this work, Romney chose to paint Emma as Circe, an enchantress, commenting on her influence on his friend and patron Greville. Greville can be perceived as adopting the role of Odysseus the wise, tempted by the witch Circe in Homer's 'Odyssey'. A study for the painting is in the Tate Gallery, London. It shows Emma with an expression of intense desire and immediacy on her face. This has been tamed in the final version to a more solemn expression.
Romney seems to have developed the painting's subject himself. He had been working with an image of a woman holding a wand aloft for some time, as it appears in three sketches dating from 1776 to 1782. He also treated the theme of witches from Shakespeare's plays in several drawings, a popular subject with other artists such as Fuseli. Other artists at the time also painted women in the role of Circe, including Joshua Reynolds.
The pose of Emma is a quotation from Reynolds's painting 'Thaïs' also at Waddesdon (acc. no. 2556). Emily Potts, the model for Reynolds's painting, was Greville's former mistress. It has been argued that Romney was making a subtle commentary on Emily's replacement by Emma in Greville's affections, as well as a statement of rivalry between the two artists.
The wolves in the painting were probably painted by Romney's friend, William Long, a surgeon and amateur painter, who bought the painting in Romney's posthumous sale of 1807. Romney used specialist animal painters for some of his portraits that involved riders and horses. It is likely that Long added the animals after he bought it, as Romney's son recollected that his father had never finished it, and although he wanted to use Gilpin, a specialist horse painter, to paint the animals, this never happened. Long also painted a leopard on the left-hand side, but this was removed sometime between 1892 and 1905.
Phillippa Plock, 2012
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
2401 x 1485
Signature & date
signed lower left
Inscriptions
[illegible] 8190
Inscription
[on stretcher cross member, white chalk]
IIIV / No No [sic] 805
Inscription
[right (back) stretcher member, white chalk]
38d
Inscription
[upper stretcher member, stencil]
4103[/3?]
Inscription
[left (back) stretcher member, graphite]
S 884
Inscription
[left (back) frame member, white chalk]
805
Inscription
[right (back) frame member, chalk]
Hamilton[?] / B[?]
Inscription
[upper frame member, chalk]
GEH 1955
Inscription
[lower frame member, graphite]
Labels
Vic Pearson & Co Ltd | Fine Art Import and Export Agents | 11-13 Macklin Street London WC2B 5NH | VEX 458/81
Label
[left (back) stretcher member, printed and handwritten label (ballpoint pen)]
Colnaghi | G. Romney | Lady Hamilton | as Circe | from A.Wiggins | + sons
Label
[upper frame member, handwritten label, black ink]
C14/52
Label
[right (back) frame member, handwritten label, blue ink]
Provenance
- Owned by George Romney (b.1734, d.1802); acquired by William Long (b.1747, d.1818) from the Romney Sale, 27 April 1807 Lot 100 for 10 guineas; inherited by his nephew Walter Long of Preshaw (b.1788, d.1871); by descent to his son Walter J. Long (b.1816, d.1891); acquired by Herbert C Gibbs (b.1854, d.1935) from the Long sale; Christie's 28 June 1890, lot 114 for 3850 guineas; by descent to members of the Gibbs family from whom acquired by a Rothschild Family Trust in June 1981.
Exhibition history
- Guildhall, London, 1892, no. 95
- Grafton Gallery, London, 1900, no. 19
- 'Emma Hamilton: Seduction and Celebrity', National Maritime Museum, London, 3 November 2016 - 17 April 2017
Collection
- Waddesdon (Rothschild Family)
- On loan since 1995
Bibliography
- William Hayley; The Life of George Romney; Chichester; 1809; p. 120
- Reverend John Romney; Memoirs of the Life and Works of George Romney; London; Baldwin and Cradock; 1830; pp. 180-1
- Sir Alfred George Temple; Reproductions by the collotype process of some of the works in the loan exhibition of pictures, held in the art gallery of the Corporation of London, at the Guildhall, 1892; London; Blades, East and Blades; 1892; p. 50
- Hilda Gamlin; George Romney and His Art; London; 1894; p. 162
- Humphry Ward, William Roberts; Romney: a biographical and critical essay, with a catalogue raisonné of his works; 2 vols; London; Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd.; 1904; vol 1, p. 61, vol. 2, p. 182, no. 6
- Romney's "Circe", The Connoisseur, 12, 1905, 249; p. 249, ill.
- Heinrich Vollrat Schumacher; The Fair Enchantress: A romance of Lady Hamilton's early years; London; Hutchinson & Co.; 1912; p. 135, ill.
- Barry E Maclean-Eltham; George Romney: paintings in public collections; Kendal; Romney Society; 1996; p. 33
- ♦; Alex Kidson; George Romney 1734-1802; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 8 February - 21 April 2002; National Portrait Gallery, London, 30 May - 18 August 2002; Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, 15 September - 1 December 2002; London; National Portrait Gallery Publications; 2002; pp. 167-169, fig. 51; discusses sitters record
- David A Cross; A Striking Likeness: The Life of George Romney; Aldershot; Ashgate Publishing; 2000; pp. 57, 99, 121, 124, 148
- Shearer West; Romney's Theatricality; Alex Kidson, Those Delightful Regions of Imagination: Essays on George Romney (Studies in British Art 9), New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002; 131-158; pl. VIII, p. 144
- Flora Fraser; Beloved Emma; The Life of Lady Hamilton; London; John Murray; January 2004; p. 127
- Les collections exceptionnelles des Rothschild: Waddesdon Manor (Hors-série de l'Estampille/l'Objet d'Art, No. 14); Dijon; Éditions Faton; 2004; pp. 22 - 29
- Daniel Worsley, Richard Worsley; I am Horatio Nelson; Norfolk; Worsley; 2005; p. 32
- Kate Williams; England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton; London; Hutchinson, The Random House Group Ltd; 2006; p. 304, ill.
- Alex Kidson; George Romney: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings; 3; New Haven, London; The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press; 2015; vol. 3, pp. 677-678, cat. no. 1489
Subject person
- Lady Emma Hamilton, Sitter
- Charles Greville, Related to
Person as Subject
Subjects
- Figures/Female
- Portraits/Female
- Mythology/Gods & Goddesses/Circe
- Animals/Mammals/Wolf
- Objects/Industrial & Maritime Equipment/Boat
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Marine (The Sea)
- Objects/Religious & Ceremonial/Wand
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Countryside
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Trees & Plants
- Work & Occupations/Witch, Sorcerer or Magician