id: 168764 accession number: 2010.461 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.461 updated: 2024-08-08 15:18:00.350000 Portrait of Anne Law (née Towry), 1st Lady Ellenborough, c. 1821. John Linnell (British, 1792–1882). Watercolor on ivory heightened with gum arabic; framed: 23.4 x 20.7 cm (9 3/16 x 8 1/8 in.); unframed: 11.3 x 8.5 cm (4 7/16 x 3 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 2010.461 title: Portrait of Anne Law (née Towry), 1st Lady Ellenborough title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1821 creation date earliest: 1816 creation date latest: 1826 current location: creditline: Dudley P. Allen Fund copyright: --- culture: England, 19th century technique: watercolor on ivory heightened with gum arabic department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Portrait Miniature find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * John Linnell (British, 1792–1882) - artist The precocious son of a Bloomsbury frame maker, John Linnell entered the Royal Academy schools in 1805 at the same time that he began studying with influential watercolor painter and drawing master John Varley (1778-1842). Under Varley's tutelage, but primarily in the company of fellow student William Mulready (1786-1863), Linnell mastered plein-air landscape painting. His studies at the Kensington gravel pits (ca. 1812) and other locales in and around London are remarkable for the intensity and novelty of their naturalistic observation. From 1807 Linnell was a regular contributor of landscape and portrait paintings at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of Painters in Watercolours. His conversion to the Baptist faith in 1811 intensified his conviction that meticulous landscape realism was a moral act pursued as a duty to God's creation. Primarily for financial reasons, Linnell painted his first miniature portrait in 1816, after which portraiture in all media tended to dominate his professional production for several decades. In 1818 he befriended William Blake (1757-1827), virtually supporting that irascible genius during his last years with important commissions, including The Book of Job engravings and the 102 watercolor illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy. Linnell's commitment to landscape painting as a spiritual art profoundly influenced the visionary early work of his pupil and future son-in-law, Samuel Palmer (1805-1881). In the 1840s, but especially after 1851, when he moved his family to Redhill in Surrey, Linnell resumed landscape painting. Many of his later pictures had literal or implied religious subject matter, and although they were not always successful commercially, they established Linnell as one of the masters of the pastoral landscape tradition in the nineteenth century. --- measurements: Framed: 23.4 x 20.7 cm (9 3/16 x 8 1/8 in.); Unframed: 11.3 x 8.5 cm (4 7/16 x 3 3/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives opening date: 2013-11-10T00:00:00 Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Anne Law, 1st Lady Ellenborough (née Towry, c. 1769–1843), by inheritance to her daughter, Frederica Selina Ramsden date: c. 1821-1843 footnotes: citations: Frederica Selina Ramsden (née Law, 1805–1879), Oxton Hall, Yorkshire, by inheritance to her son John Charles Francis Ramsden date: 1843-79 footnotes: citations: John Charles Francis Ramsden (1835–1910), Willinghurst, Surrey, by inheritance to his son Capt. Frederick William Ramsden date: 1879-1910 footnotes: citations: Capt. Frederick William Ramsden (1871–1958), Willinghurst, Surrey, by inheritance to his daughter Moyra Gwendolin Russell-Clarke date: 1910-1958 footnotes: citations: Moyra Gwendolin Russell-Clarke (née Ramsden, 1900–1981), by inheritance to her great-niece Julia Ann Llewellyn date: 1958-81 footnotes: citations: Julia Ann Llewellyn (née Cooke, b. 1948), London, England date: 1981-2010 footnotes: citations: (Sale: Bonhams (Knightsbridge) on November 24, 2010, lot 189). date: November 24, 2010 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2010- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto. Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives. 2013. page number: Mentioned: p. 84 url: Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. page number: Cat. no. 71, pp. 271-274 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2010.461/2010.461_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2010.461/2010.461_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2010.461/2010.461_full.tif