caption
Catherine Read, Sarah, Lady Pollington, Later Countess of Mexborough
Photo courtesy of Dave Penman (All rights reserved)
caption
Catherine Read, Sarah, Lady Pollington, Later Countess of Mexborough, with frame
Photo courtesy of Dave Penman (All rights reserved)
Details
- Country House
- Doddington Hall
- Title(s)
- Sarah, Lady Pollington, Later Countess of Mexborough
- Date
- ? c. mid-1760s
- Location
- Long Gallery
- Medium and support
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Overall height: 237 cm, Overall width: 145 cm
- Artist
- Catherine Read (1723-1779)
- Catalogue Number
- DN88
Description
Sarah Hussey Delaval (1742–1821) was the daughter of Captain Francis Blake Delaval (d. 1752) and Rhoda Apreece (d. 1759). She married John Savile, Lord Pollington (1719–1798) on 20 January 1760. A hand-written label pasted to the canvas, bottom left corner: ‘Sarah Ctss of Mexborough / Miss Reid’, indicates that the portrait has been attributed in the past to Catherine Read (1723–1778). Although the style of the portrait is somewhat reminiscent of Francis Cotes, comparison for example with Cotes’s portrait of Lady Boynton, of 1768, (fig. 1) suggests that it is indeed by Read rather than Cotes.
Figure 1.
Francis Cotes, Mary Heblethwayte, Lady Boynton, 1768. Oil on canvas, 238.76 × 147.3 cm. Private Collection.
Digital image courtesy of Private Collection. (All rights reserved)
Although there are few full-length portraits by Read, the present portrait compares closely in style to a number of the artist’s half-length female portraits of the 1760s. The picture has a magnificent carved frame, identical in composition and design to several others in the Long Gallery (see DN89, DN93 and DN103). This portrait, and that of her husband, Lord Pollington (DN89) is on long-term loan to Doddington Hall from the Earl of Mexborough.