portrait of a young lady c. 1700

Circle of robert byng (1666-1720
A richly coloured and highly decorative early 18th century portrait of a young girl carrying a basket of flowers which presents a charming vision of childhood in the first years of eighteenth-century England.

The elegant sitter is depicted full length within a hallway standing between a stone pillar and a billowing curtain upon a chequerboard floor. She is dressed in the highly fashionable brightly coloured silk clothing of the period, namely a blue dress and silver silk wrap over a white chemise. From underneath the hem of her dress a striped yellow silk shoe can just be glimpsed. The drapery of her costume introduces a welcome element of dynamic movement to this work.

With her long neck and insouciantly cropped hair she looks directly out at the viewer and engages us with a wide eyed and sympathetic gaze.

Within this highly decorative portrait there is a subtext as our sitters flower basket symbolises her youth, beauty and future fertility at a time when the main purpose of an aristocratic woman was to produce a son and heir. Her roses symbolise love and affection, and white jasmine her amiable character.

This portrait also also contains another potentially hidden message, a reminder that time passes rapidly...and that rather like flowers, our sitters youth and beauty may both fade quickly.

This portrait provides a captivating insight into early eighteenth century ideas of childhood innocence. Later in the century, child art began to move to emphasise the innocence and purity of childhood by showing children at play or in moments of un-self-aware contemplation. Here, however, the sitter is shown dressed as a grown-up lady might have been in her portrait, and in this state is as much a miniature woman as a child.

Portraits of children, especially those of this scale, were a great luxury in this period and, while the sitter remains tantalisingly unknown, it can be assumed that she was a member of a high status or aristocratic family.

Robert Byng (1666– 1720) Bing was born in Wiltshire, but is buried in Oxford where he died in 1720, having lived there since before 1714. He was a pupil of, and very strongly influenced by, Sir Godfrey Kneller (Principal Painter to the King and the most distinguished Baroque portraitist in England). Byng's earliest dated portraits are c.1697; one of his younger brothers, Edward, was drapery painter to Kneller and his principal assistant.

Canvas: 39" x 49" / 100cm x 125cm. Frame: 47" x 56" / 120cm x 142cm.