Mrs Williams Hope of Amsterdam: P.15010-R

Titles

Mrs Williams Hope of Amsterdam
Anne Williams Hope (nee Goddard)

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Hodges, Charles Howard
Publisher: Boydell, John
Publisher: Boydell, Josiah
Painter: Reynolds, Joshua (After)

Entities

• Print

Categories

• Print

Description

After the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds (exh. R.A. 1787, no. 200, 'A lady, half length'; Mannings, 931; Untraced). Half-length portrait of the sitter seated, directed towards the right, and resting her right elbow on a stone plinth to the left on which stands a planted urn. The sitter wears a mob cap and fichu around her shoulders, a darker shawl held around her lower arms. Mrs Hope was the eldest daughter of John Goddard of Rotterdam and Woodford Hall, Essex and niece of Mr Henry Hope, one of the chief partners in the banking house of Hope & Co in Amsterdam, who was also painted by Reynolds in the same year, the portrait similarly engraved by Hodges and published by the Boydells. On 8 April 1782, Anne Goddard married Mr John Williams (1757-1813), banker and merchant for Hope & Co in Amsterdam and eldest son of Rev. William Williams of St. Ewe, Cornwall. Williams assumed the name of Hope at first in addition to his own, but subsequently dropped the name of Williams altogether. Williams Hope continued to manage the banking business from Amsterdam until 1806, although his wife, Mrs Williams Hope and her uncle, Henry Hope along with other members of the Hope family returned to England during the French Revolution, c.1791. Joseph Farington's diary entry of March 31, 1797 records the observation that the Hopes would probably return to Holland once peace was established and that Mrs Williams Hope was 'a very proud woman' who was 'much disgusted at not being more noticed & distinguished in England'. (Joseph Farington, R.A., The Farington Diary, Vol. 1 [3rd edition, ed. James Greig, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1922-1928], p.205: https://archive.org/details/faringtondiary01fariuoft/page/n7; accessed 18 January 2019).

Notes

History note: The 'Goupil, London' stamp found on the verso of the print may indicate the origins of Marlay's purchase prior to his bequest of 1912. The London branch of the French art dealers and print publishing firm, Goupil & Cie opened at 17, Southampton Street in 1857 and was known as the Goupil Gallery. In the early years, the space was primarily a print shop. In the late 1860s, it expanded into selling original works of art and organising exhibitions. As has been noted, these exhibitions didn't only focus on the work of modern artists, but were diverse, 'ranging from prints after Old Masters to modern works of art'. Goupil was one of several commercial galleries established in London during the 1850s and 1860s (amongst them, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Colnaghi and Co.) which 'blended displays of modern artists, largely British or French, with works by Old Masters and antiquities'. [See, Anne Helmreich, ‘The Socio-Geography of Art Dealers and Commercial Galleries in Early Twentieth-Century London’, in Helena Bonett, Ysanne Holt, Jennifer Mundy (eds.), The Camden Town Group in Context, Tate Research Publication, May 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/anne-helmreich-the-socio-geography-of-art-dealers-and-commercial-galleries-in-early-r1105658, accessed 18 January 2019]. The Goupil Gallery moved to various different addresses in London and was run by William Stephen Marchant from 1898. He took over the business (winning the right in court to continue to trade under the Goupil name) until his death in 1925, after which the Gallery was run by his wife, Cicely.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Charles Brinsley Marlay, 1912