Name: JOHN DOWNMAN, A.R.A. (RUABON, WALES 1750-1824 WREXHAM)
Brand: Portrait of Mary Seawell of Great Bookham, half-length, in a white dress, red coral earrings and choker
Price: 200.00 USD
Availability: InStock

JOHN DOWNMAN, A.R.A. (RUABON, WALES 1750-1824 WREXHAM)
Portrait of Mary Seawell of Great Bookham, half-length, in a white dress, red coral earrings and choker
signed and dated 'J. Downman/ 1792' (lower right)
pencil, stump and watercolor on paper
8³⁄₄ x 7 in. (22.2 x 18 cm), oval
Executed in 1792

with John Mitchell, London.
with Elle Shushan, Pennsylvania.
Acquired by Irene Roosevelt Aitken from the above, 2015.

P. Mitchell, An Introduction to Picture Collecting, London, 1968, fig. 34.

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Lot Essay

Mary Seawell was born in 1765, to Henry and Maud Newcome, who owned The Hackney School, a fashionable London private school. She married Thomas Seawell (d. 1832) of Great Bookham, Surrey in 1786. The present drawing was made in 1792, after the birth of Mary's two sons. She is elegantly dressed with an elaborate fichu and coral necklace and earrings, indicating the family's solid standing.