The third in Britain’s trinity of great 18th-century portrait artists, George Romney (1734-1802) was late in life even more fashionable than his rivals, Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds. His muse and favorite subject was the scandalous mistress of Admiral Nelson, Lady Hamilton. He painted her more than 50 times. Neither famous nor notorious, Margaret Greene was painted just twice by Romney, as was her brother Thomas, a boyhood chum and life-long friend of the artist. Margaret so hated Romney’s first portrait of her that she hid it away in a lumber room at the family home, Whittington Hall. But this later painting surely pleased her, benefiting as it does from Romney’s later maturity, his sensitivity to “surface qualities of skin, hair and fabric,” and his graceful posing of her — as often happens with his female subjects — resting pensively on her elbow with a subtle landscape as background. Our thanks to Larry Smith, MSMC’s Vice President for Information Support Services, who discovered the painting in the Chalon campus library. Recognizing its state and significance, he sent it to a Getty conservator, who repaired its bulges and abrasions, and mended a large puncture and a complex tear. Discolored varnish was removed along with accumulated dust and grime, and the historic frame was restored as well.
We are thrilled to welcome Romney’s “Margaret Greene” to the Doheny Mansion.
