It's beautiful, Anna, and one of my favourite images.
Joseph Faringdon referred to it in his diary in March 1804, saying simply that he'd seen Masquerier who was painting a portrait of Lady Hamilton for the Exhibition and thought it was to be sent to Lord Nelson. Masquerier, as was the fashion, also mentioned that her Ladyship [my words] wasn't exactly a slip of a girl.
Farington quoted Masquerier:
Quote:
[Lady Hamilton] 'Is now about 40 years of age, & very fat. She speaks Italian like a native, & French very well.'
The portrait would have been painted only a very few weeks after the death of 'Little Emma.'
Whether it eventually got to Nelson I don't know, but the original painting appeared in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition that year. Number 67 in the catalogue.
The following comment/crit in the Monthly Mirror was attached to it:
Quote:
67. Lady Hamilton. J. J. Masquerier. Looking at the moon. The painter, however, has placed the emblem of chastity sub nube. The object, therefore, of the lady's contemplation seems to have been mist.
Mollie Hardwick wrote that the Masquerier was the last portrait she ever sat for. I'm not sure if that means the absolute last - or the last known. Perhaps, having sat for so many lauded portraits in the past, the 1804 crit put her off. If so, that would be a sad end to the long catalogue of iconic visual representations of Emma.
'Looking at the Moon' always reminds me of Emma's first experience of Vesuvius erupting in 1787, when writing to Charles Greville:
Quote:
"I was inraptured. I could have staid all night there & have never been in charity with the moon since for it looked so pale and sickly... for the light of the moon was nothing to the lava...'
It's an interesting choice of backdrop for a portrait painted in 1804, but I'm afraid I have no idea what became of it after the Royal Academy exhibition. You may well be right, Mark.
It would be interesting to know, too, whether it actually was the last portrait of Lady Hamilton.