Beechey’s Decolletage

May 26, 2013 at 11:17 am (fashion, history, people, portraits and paintings, research) (elizabeth christie, huntington museum, mary gosling, mrs langham christie, portraits, sir william beechey)

Images are EVERYTHING in a project of this sort. The stress of KNOWING items were painted, drawn, sketched… But “Where are they NOW?” is THE question. On Memoirture, Calista asked me if I had an image of Mary. Maybe? was the best answer I could give. For the famous Beechey portrait of Mary and Margaret Elizabeth Gosling seems found – and, yet, how can it be so?

The dilemma stems from the 1958 sale at auction (sold to “Leger”) of the Suttons portrait, and the acquisition of the known-Beechey by the Huntington Museum (West Virginia) occurred prior to that date.

And yet…

The Gosling girls are said to be 3/4-length, seated at a piano, with music in the hand of the elder and a frill painted (for modesty, it was painted years later by that same elder sister!) along the neckline of the younger sister. All those elements are there. You can view the Early Music magazine cover here. (It’s a PDF).

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Read my two earlier posts about this Beechey, “The Sisters,” Portrait:

• I’ve Found My Girl?!
• Elations and Disappointments

Calista’s inquiry, however, had me looking at other Beechey female portraits; were their decolletage all that ‘on view’? I’ll leave it to you to judge for yourself that Elizabeth Christie could have had more to cover up on other Beechey portraits!

Portrait of a Girl, c1790

Harriet Beechey (undated)

Miss Elizabeth Beresford (undated)

Lady Clinton Walters (c1810)

Lady Elizabeth Cole (undated)

Portrait of a Lady (1825)

Frances Addington (c1805)

Miss Ann Lee (undated)

this last might have made Victorian-era Elizabeth Christie blush:
Miss Abernathy (undated)

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