Provenance:

Commissioned from the artist and by descent in the Keppel family estate, Lexham Hall, Norfolk, to:

Major Bertram William Arnold Keppel (1876–1949), until 1909; from whom acquired by:

Thos. Agnew and Sons, stock no. 3169; where acquired on 3 May 1911 for £730 (Thomas McLean):

McLean’s Gallery, London, 1911; where acquired by:

Stephen Mitchell, Esq., Boquhan Kippen, Sterlingshire, Scotland; his sale, Christie’s, London, 24 November 1933, lot 127 (bought by Freeman)

with Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1936; where acquired by:

Mr. and Mrs. Kay Kimbell (The Kimbell Foundation), Fort Worth, Texas; their sale; Sotheby’s, New York, 20 April 1983, lot 11; where acquired by:

Private Collection, New York, until 2021

Exhibited:

“Exhibition of Twenty-one Paintings from the Kimbell Art Foundation,” Fort Worth Art Association, Fort Worth, Texas, 3 – 26 March 1953, no. 9.

Literature:

The Masterpieces of Hoppner (1758–1810), New York, 1912, p. 48.

William McKay and William Roberts, John Hoppner, R.A., Supplement and Index, 1914, p. 30.

Art Digest, vol. 10, no. 20 (1 September 1936), p. 21.

John Hoppner was one of the leading English portrait painters of the late 18th and early 19th century. He was the chief successor to Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, becoming one of the most sought-after portraitists of his day, rivalled only by Sir Thomas Lawrence. His early life at the royal court and the patronage of George III played a significant role in his ascent. Hoppner achieved his success primarily through the portraits commissioned by the royal family and some of the most distinguished members of British society. In addition to painting George III’s youngest daughters, his leading patron was the Prince of Wales (later George IV). Hoppner is best known for his fancy pictures and paintings of beautiful women, of which the present painting is a prime example.

The sitter in our painting is Laura Keppel, the daughter of the distinguished clergyman Frederick Keppel, D.D., son of the 2nd Earl of Albemarle. He was consecrated as Bishop of Exeter in 1762 and became Dean of Windsor three years later. In 1758 he married Laura Walpole, the the natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, K.B., and the niece of Horace Walpole. Their daughter Laura was born in 1765 and later married George Ferdinand Fitzroy, 2nd Baron Southampton, in 1784, becoming Lady Southampton. Although the details of the original commission do not survive, Laura Keppel was almost certainly painted following her marriage. The painting originally belonged to a series of portraits that the Keppel family commissioned from Hoppner, which included depictions of Mrs. Keppel and her three daughters (Laura, Charlotte Augusta, and Anna-Maria) all executed on a similar scale (Figs. 1-3). The group remained at the family seat at Lexham Hall, Norfolk until the early 20th century, when they were sold in successive years to Agnew’s and then dispersed.

Hoppner executed these portraits in the 1790s—the period in which his style reached its full maturity and when he was at the height of his career. The loose application of the paint and vibrant colors that define the sky and foliage in painting are characteristic of this moment, as is the delicate sfumato effect employed in the sitter’s hair and white garments, captured with broad brushstrokes. As John Wilson has observed, Hoppner’s energetic and almost abstract treatment of landscape backgrounds, here incorporating a beautifully observed tree trunk, had a profound effect on J. M. W. Turner, who Hoppner mentored early in his career.[1]

A surviving letter of expertise written ca. 1936 by William Roberts, co-author of the Hoppner monograph and catalogue raisonné, while the painting was in the possession of Newhouse Galleries states: “This [is a] characteristic and very attractive example of John Hoppner’s work…Although I have catalogued her under her maiden name of Keppel, I think she must have been painted when she was Lady Southampton; the style of dress is more in keeping with those worn by the ladies in the series of “Portraits of Ladies of Rank and Fashion” painted chiefly by Hoppner and engraved by Wilkin in the 1790’s. Anyway, it is a most desirable portrait in excellent state.”[2]

[1] John Wilson, “John Hoppner,” Grove Art Online, 2003.

[2] https://digitalcollections.frick.org/digico/#/details/bibRecordNumber/b14196463/Photoarchive.