New Portrait: Percy Gore (1794)
Emma writes much of her Currie cousin, little Percy-Gore Currie. Sister Fanny Smith stayed at East Horsley with the William Curries during part of the long illness of patriarch Charles Smith in 1814.
So today it was thrilling to see an image of Mrs. William Currie, (née Gore), people with whom Fanny passed several weeks, not knowing (she was only 10 years old), that she had seen the last of her dear father.
An early letter, written in October 1813 from Horsley was a JOINT letter, semt to Fanny by Papa as well as Mamma. While all the siblings kept various letters of Mamma, few letters survive from Papa Smith. The few that do, written to his children, present a doting, loving father. Unfortunately, he never met nor saw his youngest child, Maria — born days after his death.
In October, 1813, Papa tells Fanny that the countryside around East Horsley (Surrey), the Curries estate, is “delightful” and that Mamma is particularly drawn to it, having spent “the early part of her life” hereabouts. He equates the age of Mamma then as being about the age of Fanny now. So a young girl indeed. Mamma was born, the third daughter of her parents (Joshua and Sarah Smith, of Erlestoke Park, Devizes) in 1772. So the time would be around 1782, a good twelve years before Miss Gore joined the family.
Since Mamma’s 1814 letter to Fanny asks her to give “My love to Mrs. Currie,” it is probable that Mrs. Currie received an additional letter (not located, alas!) telling her of Mr. Smith’s death – and asking her to break the news to Fanny.
Percy, Mrs. Currie, would have been twenty years older than the powdered, willowy woman we see. But the face is kindly, and quietly reassuring. Fanny would have had as playmate Percy’s daughter, Percy-Gore, about two years younger than Fanny.
The portrait, by John Russell, is described in its 2015 auction offering, as “pastel with touches of gouache on paper; 35 11/16 x 27 3/4 inch). You can read the description for yourself at Bonhams.
Neil Jeffares’ “Pastellists before 1800” has a short write-up; it seems to intimate that the portrait did not sell in 2015 and was relisted the following year (at a lower estimate), when it evidently sold.
I cannot say ENOUGH about how seeing people from my research project spurs me on to dig deeper. I began – and this was how I found Percy Currie – in looking for information on her daughter Percy-Gore, for I found that she married into a family whose eldest siblings were greatly admired for their musical talents by eldest sibling Augusta Smith. Now I have the task to look up BOTH Mother and Daughter, and to see what the letters and diaries of the Smiths have to say about the Curries. Of interest, too, of course, is finding more about East Horsley, especially as Mamma Smith once knew it so well.
A MYSTERY =>
The British Museum has put up an image of a “Mrs. Currie” by Downman (dated 1791, which would be three years before her marriage), makes me wonder: IS the sitter Percy Gore?
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 