Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.44
Gallery Label:
This portrait is one of three paintings that in 1782 won Hoppner the gold medal of the Royal Academy of Arts. Traditionally identified as Louisa Lane, by the end of the year Hoppner had arranged for the portrait to be engraved in stipple and sold as a representation of the fictional character "Cecilia," after Fanny Burney's five-volume bestseller of the same year, Cecilia, or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Sitters, especially young women and their families, could rely on a measure of privacy because their identity was usually suppressed when portraits were publicly exhibited. However, to be co-opted in a commercial venture of this kind could cause friction between artists and their portrait clients. Though Hoppner was at times thoughtless and abrasive, he succeeded in building a powerful clientele, and the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV), Lord Harewood, Lord Grosvenor, and Lady Hampden all stood as godparents to his children. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005
