A rare pen and ink sketch by a leading 18th-century British portrait artist has been discovered by chance in a wheelie bin in the US.<\/p>\n
The piece, by Lancashire-born George Romney, depicts Henrietta Greville, Countess of Warwick, in a seated pose.<\/p>\n
It will be auctioned at Roseberys on 12 March in London and has been valued at between \u00a3600 and \u00a3800.<\/p>\n
The finished version of the portrait – in oils – is held in The Frick Collection, less than 200 miles from where the sketch was stumbled upon by an antiques enthusiast in Hudson, New York.<\/p>\n
The collector, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “When I first found it buried in the wheelie bin it looked interesting, but I had no idea it was nearly 300 years old.<\/p>\n
“After taking it home and doing some research I couldn’t believe it. How did this mid-18th century drawing from England end up in the trash in upstate New York?”<\/p>\n
Lara L’vov-Basirov, of Roseberys, said: “This is a remarkable find, and I’m delighted it was saved from the rubbish.<\/p>\n
“This sketch is from Romney’s mature period at the height of his sensitivity as a portraitist.<\/p>\n
“It highlights his close relationship with the Grevilles, who were lifelong patrons and friends. We hope this discovery will help establish a provenance trail.”<\/p>\n
The work is regarded as typical of the artist’s experimental technique, which marked him out from his contemporaries Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.<\/p>\n
Henrietta Greville (n\u00e9e Vernon) married George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, in 1776.<\/p>\n
Her brother-in-law Charles Greville introduced Romney to his artistic muse and lifelong obsession Emma Hamilton, the mistress of Lord Nelson.<\/p>\n
Henrietta sat for Romney in 1777, 1782, and 1784, frequently appearing in his portraits alone and with her children.<\/p>\n
Born in Dalton-in-Furness when it was part of the historic county of Lancashire, he died in Kendal, Cumbria, in 1802.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A rare pen and ink sketch by a leading 18th-century British portrait artist has been discovered by chance in a wheelie bin in the US. The piece, by Lancashire-born George Romney, depicts Henrietta Greville, Countess of Warwick, in a seated pose. It will be auctioned at Roseberys on 12 March in London and has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}