Lady Northampton’s Album
At Christie’s in December 2020, this album compiled by Emma’s “Aunt Northampton” – featuring her own watercolors, but also those of others – including her teacher and friend, Miss Margaret Meen, and her sister Emma Smith.
Miss Meen‘s work is shown in these two specimens. Click on the picture to see all 10 illustrations. I hope the album went to a good home, and will stay in “one piece”, rather than broken up into 69 “for sale” Botanicals.
I have seen some of Lady Northampton‘s work in the flesh; they are stunning.
Maria Culme Seymour, miniature by Ross
I’ve written before about finding this darling miniature of Maria Smith AKA Lady Culme Seymour; but last night I took the opportunity to RELOOK at Bonhams auction site, because a letter I’ve given scant attention to actually mentions THIS VERY image!
It is the end of November, 1844; Maria and John Culme Seymour have been married since February; the visitor is Mamma Smith, and she is writing, jointly, to daughters Emma and Eliza:
“Maria sang too; she … played her part [ie, of hostess] very well; conversed with animation, was polite to all, & looked happy: she looked young & pretty, with Curls; looked quite like Ross’s picture.”
That comment alone tells me that Mamma thought the portrait a fair likeness of her youngest daughter!
As you can see, when you go to Bonhams, they have a “similar items” area in the lower right corner; in this case, other portraits done by Sir William Charles Ross, RA.
Among them is this portrait, simply described as “of a Lady”. As you know, such terminology kills me.
A sweet, yet slightly melancholy face, wouldn’t you say. The description is short: “A Lady, standing in a landscape and wearing black dress and white underslip, a pink rose at her corsage [sic?], jeweled belt, olive green shawl draped about her shoulders, her hair upswept into a knot, the front centrally parted and curled in ringlets framing her face, holding periwinkles in her right hand. Gilt-mounted within brown leather travelling case lined with velvet.” She sold for £2000 in a May 2013 auction (and was earlier sold through Christie’s, in 1979).
Who could she be??
_I_ am looking for a “missing” Ross portrait: of Fanny Seymour. Richard Seymour (who also sat to the artist in April 1836), wrote in his diary of Ross’s visit to Kinwarton on the 22nd to paint Fanny in September 1836; and on the 28th, he says:
“Mr. Ross has finished a miniature of dearest Fanny – w:h quite satisfies me – and I have just paid him £30. viz: £26..5 for the Min: and £3..15 for the frame & case, yet to come. X Giving him a £5 note and checque on Curries for £25. This piece of self indulgence will I hope be pardoned in me –“
Now compare the above to Maria, which Mamma seems to agree is a good likeness:
Not the same person, but could they be sisters? And yet compare to their Sister-in-law Frances (Seymour) Smith (Spencer Smith’s wife), another miniature by Ross dating to the mid-1830s (this a later “copy”):
While not as engaging as this slyly-smiling Frances Smith, one almost wonders a bit: Could it be her?
Ah, I mourn that the sitter of the Bonhams Ross miniature may go through life forever more as “A Lady”. If only Richard had written something about what Fanny wore, or how she was posed.
Chasing Mrs Frances Jacson
J-A-C-S-O-N; an unusual spelling, isn’t it.
When I came across the name this evening, I had to mutter to myself: They’re the same person…, surely…
While writing a blog post on Anna Seward for the Ladies of Llangollen blog, I came across a very nice biography of her at Chawton House Library. Intrigued, as I hadn’t look over the Library’s website for quite a while, I clicked to see what authors they were featuring on their NOVELS-ON-LINE. Some familiar-sounding names, not from a novel-point-of-view, but from a Smith & Gosling point of view! Harriet Cheney? The same who drew portraits while in Italy, including the young Comptons (see portraits & pedigrees page). Mrs Cheney’s book (2nd edition published in 1825) is A Peep at the Pilgrims. She did live until 1848, according to Christie’s website. But so many people — especially within a family — have the same name as other family members that I won’t yet count the two Harriets as one.
Then I spied the name JACSON. Two novels are listed for a FRANCES JACSON: Things by their Right Names (1812) and Isabella: A Novel (1823).
Why did the name attract me? I think I have a picture (a miniature) of her!
Sale 5984 at Christie’s was The Country House Sale – Newton Hall. Newton Hall, in Northumberland, has ties to the Cook-Widdrington family; they have ties (through the Davisons) to the Goslings! And it was while perusing this sale catalogue that I came across (and saved) a pair of miniatures — Captain Shalcross Jacson and his wife Frances, née Cook. Frances captivated me:
She is described as, “in white muslin dress, blue fringed shawl, coral necklace”; the pair of miniatures date to c1815.
IS this Frances Jacson, with the unusual last name, Chawton House’s Frances Jacson??? S-U-R-E-L-Y S-O. {see UPDATE below}
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BTW, this same Christie’s auction, and source, sold my beloved Harriet Gosling AKA Mrs Alexander Davison. The Dorothy Widdrington you see represented as an old lady, as well as some of her drawings, was the Davison’s daughter — whom my Mary Gosling (Lady Smith) includes several times in her diaries!
BTW2: Capt Cook, who took the name Widdrington, published a couple books too! Sketches in Spain During the Years 1829-1832 and Spain and the Spaniards in 1843 (vol. 1; vol. 2) and Observations on the Present State of War in Spain. Interestingly, the Sketches exists in an 1834 GERMAN edition (on books.google.com) as well!
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UPDATE: The Christie’s Sale 5475 featured a novel, Plain Sense, by Frances Margaretta Jacson – and included this description:
“FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR’S ‘POPULAR FIRST NOVEL’. The two unmarried sisters, Maria and Frances, both turned to writing, partly in order to help out their brother Shallcross Jacson (d. 1821) who was ‘over-fond of drink and horse-racing’, Maria turning to manuals on botany and gardening, and Frances to fiction (see ODNB). Their other brother, Roger, had a son Shallcross Fitzherbert Jacson (1826-1917) who married Frances, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Cook of Newton Hall, and who inherited the house in 1856, following the death of his wife’s brother, Samuel Edward Cook (later Widdrington). RARE. NO COPY IN BL and only two copies recorded in the British Isles (National Trust and private collection). Blakey, p. 172. (3)”
This copy of Plain Sense was once part of Newton Hall’s library.
I have found Christie’s and/or Bonhams to have some incorrect information (which auction house had the three Spencer-Smith girls??); but here is a Shallcross Jacson married to a Frances Cook whose birth/death dates are 1826-1917. In the miniatures Captain Shallcross Jacson is given dates of 1787-1852. Groan! were there really TWO Shallcross Jacsons married to TWO Frances Cooks??? I do rather chuckle over poor Shallcross who died in 1821 being “over-fond of drink and horse-racing,” but who were all these Shallcross Jacsons!?
BTW, here’s a portrait, from the Newton Hall sale, of the Rev. Roger Jacson, Rector of Bebington (b. 1753, according to Christie’s). If he was born in 1753, did he really have a son in 1826??? Wikipedia describes Frances Margaretta Jacson as the daughter of the Rev. Simon Jacson, Rector of Bebington (1728-1808). This then is probably Roger’s father, and therefore the father of an unmarried Frances Margaretta Jacson.
Check out this at the Orlando Project (most of the site is by subscription, alas…): Frances Margaretta Jacson kept a diary!
The game is afoot, Watson…
Miniatures on the Auction Block
Soon after my last post, in which I discussed the *discovery* of Fanny Seymour having had her portrait miniature painted by Mr Ross (where is it??), I found a group of THREE miniatures of Fanny’s nieces:
This was a sale that just took place at the end of November 2011! A correspondent, who had photographed an album containing photographs of some of the Spencer Smith children, was VERY surprised — yet happy to note the threesome have stayed together.
(side note: Yes, ultimately Spencer gave his children the name Spencer Smith; I supposed to differentiate his children from those of his brother, Charles Joshua Smith.)
The uppermost portrait is Augusta Frances Spencer Smith (born 1849); bottom row shows, on the left, Isabella Mary Spencer Smith (born 1846), and, right, Dora Spencer Smith (born 1845). Dora married the Rev. John Jenkyns, whose family has ties to Balliol College, Oxford University.
The miniatures are by Reginald Easton (1807-1893), painted in 1863.
Please disregard the lot’s “notes” — no way did Charles Smith (who died in 1814, and was Spencer’s father) marry Frances Seymour born in 1808!
News! News! News!
Two *new* portraits join my little gallery… They were found while looking for something totally different (isn’t that always the case?!).
My first was this delightful portrait of Wilmina Maclean Clephane:
I was looking to update information on my current writing project, about Fanny( Smith) Seymour, and wanted to double check information about Torloisk (on the Isle of Mull, Scotland). This was the home of the three Maclean Clephane sisters. Don’t remember them?? I can’t blame you — there are so many names and people to remember, aren’t there?
The Clephane sisters were wards of writer Walter Scott; Margaret Douglas Maclean Clephane married Spencer, Lord Compton in 1815 — and Emma recorded the events of Margaret’s homecoming (see my article at the JASNA website equating this event to a proposed welcome for Elizabeth Bennet Darcy). Spencer and his sister Lady Elizabeth Compton were the only cousins the Smiths of Suttons had. Emma came to know the Clephane girls — the other two being Anna-Jane and Wilmina — fairly well, and even wrote of meeting Walter Scott himself!
**Read about the Clephanes’ connection to early music for the Gaelic Harp**
How wonderful to read Walter Scott’s (online) journal and see this; it’s September, 1827:
“September 6. — Went with Lady Compton to Glasgow, and had as pleasant a journey as the kindness, wit, and accomplishment of my companion could make it. Lady C. gives an admirable account of Rome, and the various strange characters she has met in foreign parts. I was much taken with some stories out of a romance… I am to get a sight of the book if it be possible. At Glasgow (Buck’s Head) we met Mrs. Maclean Clephane and her two daughters, and there was much joy. After the dinner the ladies sung, particularly Anna Jane, who has more taste and talent of every kind than half the people going with great reputations on their back.” Read more ….
Margaret was the eldest (born 1791), Wilmina the youngest (born 1803); they and Compton are extremely prevalent in the Scott correspondence. Such fun to read of Margaret, when a young bride newly brought home to Castle Ashby, entertaining her guests with Scottish Song and Music, such as Emma recorded witnessing. Margaret was a dab hand at art as well, which brings me back to Harriet Cheney.
The Cheney name is one VERY familiar from letters and diaries. And, besides, the Cheney family were related to the Carrs/Carr Ellisons and they end up in Mary Gosling’s extended family! Again: a small world.
Harriet Cheney, whose Italian sketchbooks went up for auction in 2005 at Christie’s, not only sketched places, but also those whom she came across. Wilmina was one; her sister Margaret and her family was another:
Here, Margaret is depicted with her daughter Marianne Compton (the future Lady Alford). Other images not “illustrated” at Christie’s includes other children and also Spencer Lord Compton! Such treasures.
**Read Karen E. McAulay‘s PhD thesis Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting, c1760-1888**
Look at all 110 lots (Wilmina is Lot 44; Margaret and Marianne are Lot 45) at Christie’s. There is even a specimen of the artistry of Wilmina herself at Lot 87.
I swear that Emma called Wilmina’s husband Baron de Normann (Christie’s cites de Norman). Was it Emma’s spelling, or how he spelled his name ?? Always tricky to tell during this time period, when spelling was somewhat fluid — even for names! Christie’s seems to have obtained the name from the signature on the art itself, but who knows…
The Year of the French, 1798
I have spent the last three days in England 1798 — literally the Year of the French, due to all the rumors flying around about imminent invasion.
The “tour” has been courtesy of Illinois resident Mark Woodford, whose company website, Networked Robotics, is worth a look. Mark’s father recently bequeathed him a diary which had passed the last ten to fifteen years in Charles Woodford’s household as “1798 Diary of a High-Born Lady”. The high-born lady turns out to be none other than AUGUSTA SMITH (née Smith), Emma Austen-Leigh’s mother; and 1798, the year of her courtship and marriage to Charles Smith of Suttons. A true find, indeed. And I owe Mark more than one heartfelt “thank you” — firstly, for contacting me after he identified Augusta as the diarist; and, secondly, for loaning me the diary in order for a transcription to be taken.
Augusta arrived last Thursday, and we’ve spent hours together ever since.
How did the diary come to be among the Woodford possessions? With the death of Charles Woodford, it may be impossible to narrow down: a second-hand antiquarian bookshop? Christie’s or Sotheby’s? Or…?? Where it came from would be a mystery well-solved, yet it points up what I’ve long suspected: 
There are individual diaries out there (potentially of MANY family members), on random shelves, merely described by their dates of composition because their diarists never ascribed names to their scribblings. (Only in ONE diary — belonging to Charles Joshua Smith — have I encountered an owner’s inscription; although, of course, Mary Gosling penned her name on the “title page” of her earliest travel diary, dated 1814. That simple act of possession unravelled this entire historical puzzle.)
May this diary of Augusta’s be the first of many such “discoverings”!
Although I have now completed a preliminary transcription (proofing to come!), a year in someone’s life can be overwhelming to describe in a few paragraphs, never mind a few words. And a few words will right now have to suffice.
The year begins with young Augusta at home, at Erle Stoke Park, Wiltshire — home of Joshua and Sarah (née Gilbert) Smith. Her father was a Member of Parliament (for Devizes); her soon-to-be fiancé also sits in the House of Commons. Between the two men as sources for political bulletins, Augusta punctuates her diary with news of Buonaparte, French troop movements, taxation laws, and Nelson Naval Victories. One interesting item: she writes of visiting Mrs Davison — this would be Harriot Davison, née Gosling: sister to William Gosling (father to my diarist Mary Gosling) and wife of Nelson’s confidant, Alexander Davison of Swarland.
Mrs Davison is a shadowy figure; she had already died by the time Mary’s diaries begin (1829). Charles, whose diaries begin the year he and Mary married (1826), mentions her just once: when they hear of her death (28 October 1826).
From Augusta Smith’s entry on January 2nd — where she makes notation of a rumor: that the French were building a RAFT (700 feet long by 350 feet wide) “for an Invasion on England” (on the opposite page, written down who-knows-when, is the bold negation: “N.B. this report proved false.”) — to her comments surrounding news of Nelson’s Nile Victory towards the end of the year, we now get a spine-chilling glimpse at how unsettled life for the English living near the coast could be.
More later!
Resolutions
How difficult it is to ‘blog’ when one’s personal life generates an excessively ‘blue’ mood… never mind the TON of snow I’ve shifted today (winter blues don’t help either). But I do have one find I’d like to share — before it is too late and the images disappear:
On 20 January 2010, Christie’s auction house will put under the gavel contents from Newton Hall, the ancestral home of the Widdringtons. The short history of the Widdringtons, as concerns us here, is as follows:
William Gosling, Mary’s father, had two sisters. Maria married Henry Gregg, and was known to Mary as Aunt Gregg; the other died before Mary’s (extant) diaries commence, though her death is noted in Charles’ diary for 1826: Harriet Davison, wife of Alexander Davison of Swarland Hall (Northumbria). Mr Davison figures in the history of Admiral Nelson and his own auction took place in 2000 — the items became the subject of Martyn Downer’s excellent book Nelson’s Purse.
The Davisons had among their children Dorothy; she married Capt. Cook – who later took the name Widdrington. The miniature that comes up for sale on the 20th resided at Newton Hall all these decades because it once belonged to Dorothy! Mary’s diaries mention Dorothy and her husband, as well as other Davison siblings.
The description for Lot 118/Sale 5984 “Harriet Davison (1770-1826) of Swarland Hall” is “English School, c1790. Harriet Davison née Gosling, in white muslin wrap-front dress, white pearl-bordered bandeau in her powdered curling hair. On ivory. Oval 3 5/16 inch (85 mm) high, gilt-metal frame, the reverse centered with lock of hair and gold wire on opalescent glass panel, within translucent blue glass surround, within velvet-lined hinged burgundy leather travelling case.”
The estimate: £1,500-2000.
She’s a little beauty!
There are a couple other miniatures of family – but I must be quick and will leave the searching up to viewers. One that I simply must mention, however, is a painting on ivory done by young Dorothy (b1794). The curious thing is that this is a copy of a quite “famous” etching of Mary’s Aunt, Mrs Drummond Smith, as a child (Lot 124) [estimate £300-500]. Compare it to the etching, held at the National Portrait Gallery (Mary Cunliffe).
This page shows some other items relating to Dorothy Widdrington: her sketchbook (Lot 121; estimate: £1,500-2500], a loose drawing (lot 123; estimate: £600-900), a miniature of her in old age (Lot 122; estimate £200-400). Capt. Samuel Edward Widdrington, Royal Navy (formerly, Cook) can be seen (and look at the sprigs of hair peeping through from the backside!) in his own miniature (Lot 126; estimate: £800-1200).
How envious I am that the family have such items – and, as someone with so little to show from my own family, I wonder: How can they part with them?? Wish I had a couple thousand pounds; I would go on a shopping spree!
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 