Anne Seymour Damer (1749 - 1828) - Some Portraits.
A few notes - with a brief biography - post under construction.
Some might say that she was a better sculptor of animals than of human beings.
As Alison Yarrington has pointed out that in the Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters and Sculptors of 1830 Allan Cunningham’s Damer is a high-born actress playing the part of a sculptor. This he conveys in details that seem uncontrived, but are every bit as tropic as the stories he undermines: ‘she wore a mob cap and apron to preserve her silk gown and embroidered slippers’.
Cunningham’s influential and nuanced Life.... presents her as a woman of deluded faith in her own genius who hoped to discard her aristocratic lineage and replace it with an immortal reputation as an artist. Cunningham expressed admiration for this ambition.
The tragedy, however, as he presented
it, was that Damer had no genius, her works were uneven in quality, and she
would have received little or no notice had it not been for her rank and her
rejection of the mental and physical expectations of a lady of quality. Of her
works he was scathing, writing : ‘She exhibits few symptoms of poetic
feeling…she aspires only to the gentle and the agreeable; there is little of
dignity in her Thalia (29) – of heroism in her Nelson – or of intellectual
capacity in her Fox’ (Cunningham 1829-33, 3, 273).
See Greg Sullivan's -
https://arthistoriography.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/sullivan1.pdf
and more useful information from Greg Sullivan particularly with regard to her relationship with the press in 1788 at
Damer’s credibility as a sculptor was often questioned by contemporaries and later critics because of her lack of formal training.
Some measure of her abilities and ambition was that, despite her lack of training, or because of her aristocratic and wealthy connections (my italics) Mrs Damer was an honorary
exhibitor at the Royal Academy between 1784 and 1818, showing over 30 works,
and made several public monuments, including an over life-size statue of
King George III for Edinburgh Registry office, where it still stands.
see my post ref George III at Edinburgh - why were there so few criticisms of this statue?
The Diary of Joseph Farington, Vol. 2, 571, and Vol. 9, 3223–3224. - 1830.
Farington toured the (Royal Academy) exhibitions on one occasion with Damer and found her affected and irritating, adding that he felt she had “no exact knowledge of painting whatever she may have of sculpture; and she did not make intelligent remarks on the latter”,
Farington called the aristocratic Thomas Hope’s
praise for Damer in 1804 “most extravagant & false & ridiculous”. Allan
Cunningham, “Mrs Damer” in The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects, 6 vols (London: J. Murray, 1829–1833), Vol. 3,
214–236.
In the last twenty years, there has been a strong revival of interest in Damer’s life, particularly in gay and lesbian studies due to her (in)famous close relationship with author Mary Berry (see the bust of Berry below).
By 1778 there were already rumours circulating about her sexuality -see - A Sapphick Epistle from Jack Cavendish to the Honourable and most Beautiful, Mrs D.... of c. 1778.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/anne-seymour-damer-public-life-private-love
Anne Seymour Damer A Woman of Art and Fashion ....by Percy Noble of 1908 is available online -
https://ia802200.us.archive.org/30/items/anneseymourdamer00noblrich/anneseymourdamer00noblrich.pdf
The two most recent study of her life are The Life of Anne Damer: Portrait of a Regency Artist by Jonathan David Gross pub. 2014.
Mrs D - The Life of Anne Damer (1748-1828) by Richard Webb pub. 2013.
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Anne Seymour Damer, nee Conway - A Very Brief Biography.
Anne Seymour Conway was born on 8 November 1749 at Coombe
Bank in Sundridge, near Sevenoaks in Kent. She was the only child of Henry
Seymour Conway, a Field Marshal in the British army and Whig MP, and his wife
Caroline, daughter of John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll, and widow of the 3rd
Earl of Ailesbury.
On 14 June 1767, aged 17 Anne was married (arranged by their parents) to the Honourable John Damer, son of Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester but the marriage was unhappy.
Her husband, who was heir to a great fortune, was a hopeless spend-thrift, and Damer too appears to have indulged in the trappings of high rank and fortune: her ear-rings alone were reputedly worth £4,000.
They separated after seven years and on 15 August 1776, Anne’s husband committed suicide in the Bedford Arms a public house in Covent Garden, leaving huge debts behind him.
Something of the scale of Damers spending is reflected in the
extent of his wardrobe, which was sold after his death for £15,000.
Bedford Coffee-House, a celebrated coffee-house, "under
the Piazza in Covent Garden,"
Old and New London by Walter Thornbury Pub 1878 says
"Mr. Damer's suicide was hastened, and indeed provoked, by the refusal of his father, Lord Milton, to discharge his debts. Horace Walpole, after entering at length into this matter in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, in August, 1776, gives the following circumstantial account:—"On Thursday Mr. Damer supped at the 'Bedford Arms,' in Covent Garden, with four ladies and a blind fiddler. At three in the morning he dismissed his seraglio, ordering his Orpheus to come up again in half an hour. When he returned he found his master dead, and smelt gunpowder. He called: the master of the house came up; and they found Mr. Damer sitting in a chair dead, with one pistol beside him and another in his pocket. The ball had not gone through his head or made any report. On the table lay a scrap of paper with these words, 'The people of the house are not to blame for what has happened; it was my own act. …' What a catastrophe for a man at thirty-two, heir to two-and-twenty thousand a year!" Horace Walpole remarks, with his usual cynicism on this affair, that "Five thousand a year in present, and £22,000 in reversion, are not, it would seem, sufficient for happiness, and cannot check a pistol."
see - Gentleman's Magazine, 1776, p. 383; Walpole, vol. vi. p.
369.
She was a second cousin on her fathers side of Horace Walpole (d. 1797) and in his will, he left her a life interest in his Strawberry Hill at Twickenham home.
When Anne was six years old her father was ordered to join
his regiment in Ireland. He was
accompanied by his wife, and Anne was left in the charge of Horace Walpole, her
godfather and her father’s cousin.
Walpole was clearly fond of his young charge, and throughout his
correspondence to her parents he refers affectionately to Anne as ‘missy’.
Horace Walpole wrote in an undated letter? to her father "Good-night to you, to her Ladyship, and to the Infanta (Miss Conway), whose progress in waxen statuary advances so fast that by next winter she may rival Rackstrow's old man" from Noble 1908.
This is a very interesting reference to the remarkable painted plaster bust (Colley Cibber) formerly at Strawberry Hill in Walpole's Collection now at the NPG.
for Rackstrow see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2023/10/rackstrow.html
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01301/Colley-Cibber
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/03/colley-cibber-1671-1757.html
Mrs Damer, commenced modelling in terracotta after receiving (two or three lessons Walpole Anecdotes) in modelling from Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751 - 1801) who was working in England from 1773 - 1780 - he exhibited at the Royal Academy- it is thought that Walpole introduced them. Ceracchi was apparently smitten by her "graceful nymph-like person" and "begged her to sit to him and he made a most charming statue of her whole length as large as life in terracotta" (Walpole Anecdotes 1937, 142).
The Terracotta is now missing presumed destroyed, was translated into the marble now at the British Museum (see images etc below).
She learnt carving techniques from John Bacon I, she developed a severely neoclassical style,
often signing her work in Greek.
Horace Walpole in 1780, wrote of her: not at all biased! my italics
Damer restored a bust of Jupiter Serapis for Horace Walpole and repaired the beak on Walpole’s famed Boccapaduli Eagle.
Erasmus Darwin penned the lines: ‘long with soft touch shall Damer’s chisel charm/ with grace delight us and with beauty warm/ Forster’s fine form shall hearts unborn engage/ and Melbourne’s smile enchant another age ’
Sir William Hamilton, who was visited by Damer in Naples in
1782, felt that her Ceres excelled the work of any living Italian She was
in Italy again between October 1785 and July 1786 when she executed a profile
portrait of a British visitor, Lady Elizabeth Foster.
In 1785 she had modelled the (not very good) male and female keystones for Henley on Thames Bridge.
In November 1790 Damer left England for Portugal for her health’s sake. She proceeded to Spain, where she visited the Alhambra, and then to France.
After her return to London in May 1791 she completed the statue of George III for the Register House at Edinburgh. This commission came in 1787 through the good offices of her uncle, Lord Frederick Campbell, the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland. It was her most ambitious work, and its production was monitored in some detail by The World, who recorded all the stages of the work. The marble, cut from a nine-ton block of Carrara, seems to have been carved entirely by Damer, and was exhibited at the Rotunda, Blackfriars Road, London (The Leverian Museum), in 1793-5.
The Leverian Museum named after its creator Ashton Lever - after it passed from Lever's ownership, the collection was displayed for nearly twenty years more at the purpose-built Blackfriars Rotunda just across the Thames, sometimes called Parkinson's Museum for its subsequent owner, James Parkinson (c. 1730-1813).
Its finishing touches were a bronze crown and sceptre, cast by the clockmaker Benjamin Vulliamy.
A portrait of her close friend Mary Berry, also in bronze, dates from around this time and may have been cast by the same firm.
On his death in 1797, Walpole made Anne one of his executors and left her a life interest in Strawberry Hill. She lived there until 1811 when she had to give the house up because it was too expensive to maintain.
Damer was an honorary exhibitor at the Royal Academy between
1784 and 1818, showing over 30 works, and even made several public monuments,
including an over life-size statue of King George III for Edinburgh Registry
office, where it still stands.
From 1818, Anne Damer lived at York House, Twickenham. She
continued to sculpt until the end of her life. She died, aged 79, in 1828 at
her London house, 27 Upper Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. She was buried in
the church at Sundridge, Kent.
According to Richard Webb, she directed in her will that her
correspondence be destroyed and that she be buried with the bones of her dog
and her sculpting tools.
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Anne Seymour Damer - Miniature Portrait by Jeremiah Meyer 1735 - 1789).
Sparse info originally from NPG see -
Another version was sold by Christie's 15 October 1996.
A Fine Portrait Miniature of the Hon. Mrs Damer, facing
right in décolleté lilac-coloured dress with white underslip, green bow tied at
corsage, upswept powdered hair
oval, 3 3/8 in. (86 mm.) high, silver-gilt frame.
Provenance -
His widow, Mrs Henry Walters, née Sarah Wharton Green Jones,
New York; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 25 April 1941, lot 592.
Donald de Natalba, New York, 1953.
Literature
D. Foskett, 'In Search of Miniatures', The Antique Dealer
& Collectors Guide, December 1978, illustrated p. 128, no. 6.
R. Walker, Regency Portraits, London, 1985, I, p. 144.
Exhibited
Edinburgh, The Arts Council Gallery, British Portrait
Miniatures, 1965, no. 194.
Missing
....................
A portrait previously suggested as Mrs John Damer (ex Chillington Hall) by Bath artist William Hoare and with dealer London Miles Barton , sold by Bonhams 13 Sept. 2023 has since been dismissed see -
https://www.milesbarton.com/product/portrait-of-a-lady-c-1750/
For Hoare's pastel portraits and a note on this portrait see -
http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Hoare.pdf
......................
Mrs Damer as Ceres aged 16.
by Angelica Kauffman.
signed l.r.:Angelica Pinxt Ao 1766.
124 x 99 cms
Sold Sotheby's. Lot 41, 2004.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2004/early-british-pictures-l04125/lot.41.html
It was painted by Angelica Kauffman in 1766, the year in which she made the decision to move from Italy to England.
Within a month of
having arrived in London Kauffman was hard at work on this portrait. On 2nd
August Lady Mary Coke wrote to her sister, the Countess of Stafford:
I went with them, and saw the picture she was painting of Miss Conway. It was like, and appeared to be to be well done, but too large, as you would take for a very big woman".
The NPG website states -
"Oil by Angelica Kauffmann painted for General Conway and later in Colonel Campbell Johnston's collection (reproduced in colour in Connoisseur, LI, 1921, p 21), three-quarter-length seated to left holding a bunch of flowers (Manners & Williamson, Angelica Kauffmann, 1924, p 192); an original drawing is reproduced in Dorothy M. Mayer, Angelica Kaufmann, 1972, plate 24.
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Mrs Damer.
Joshua Reynolds.
1773.
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1773 exhibition catalogue Ditto [a lady], half length"
Yale Centre for British Art
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:1361
Sat in October, 1772. Paid for June 17, 1771, Mrs. Demar, £36 15s -. So entered in the second ledger, but in the first ledger it is Hon. Mrs. Darner, but erased. Exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1773, No. 236.
Dublin, 1872, No. 140,
Grosvenor, 1884, No.
98,
.........................
Portrait Head of Mrs Damer.
Studio? of Joshua Reynolds.
NPG.
Based perhaps on a work of 1772 - 1773 illustrated above.
I would suggest that it might be the original oil sketch. Comparison with the portrait above might suggest that this portrait might be improved with a light cleaning - Reynolds was infamous for using experimental techniques but the varnish looks rather yellow from the photograph on the website
540 mm x 445 mm.
NPG 594
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitExtended/mw01704/Anne-Seymour-Damer-ne-Conway
The Hon. Mrs Damer - Head, size, canvas 22 x 18 in. A Sketch of the head ; very little ornament in the hair ; pendant from neck ; velvet much thinner than in the larger picture.
to Anderdon; and
May 31, 1879,
Lot 214 (Anderdon,
owner), for £35
14s.,
Sold to dealers Colnaghi.
................................
Mrs Damer.
A Mezzotint after Joshua Reynolds.
John Raphael Smith.
1774.
Lettered with title and production detail: "Painted by
Sir Joshua Reynolds / Engraved by J.R. Smith / Published March 1st. 1774, by
J.R. Smith, No.4, Exeter Court, Strand"
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1902-1011-4966
......................
The Portrait of (perhaps) Mrs Damer by (perhaps) Joshua Reynold.
Current location unknown.
The Portrait illustrated below was used on the cover of Mrs D The Life of Anne Damer 1748 - 1828 by Richard Webb pub. Brewin Books 2013.
An excellent place to start when researching Mrs Damer.
This portrait is titled "Mrs Damer dressed as Athenais in the Richmond House Players production of Theodosius" by Joshua Reynolds - 1788.
I can find no reference to this portrait in the standard reference works on Reynolds except for the 1899 work A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynold by Algernon Graves and William Vine Cronin where it is described as
Half length, canvas 29 x 24 in.
available online at - https://archive.org/details/historyofworksof01grav/page/n13/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Damer
- therefore the attribution should be treated with some caution until confirmed.
..................................
The Three Witches from Macbeth.
Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne; Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; Anne Seymour Damer.
by Daniel Gardner.
1775.
National Portrait Gallery. Ref. NPG 6903.
https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2011/the-three-witches-from-macbeth
Viscountess Melbourne is also thought to have commissioned the work which has descended through her family.
Although there is no evidence of its being exhibited at the time, contemporaries clearly knew of its existence.
It
is mentioned in Lady Mary Coke’s journal of 1775 where she wrote of a drawing
of ‘the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Melburn, and Mrs Damer all being drawn in
one picture in the Characters of the three Witches in Macbeth … They have
chosen that Scene where they compose their Cauldron, but instead of “finger of
Birth-strangled babe, etc” their Cauldron is composed of roses and carnations
and I daresay they think their charmes more irresistible than all the magick of
the Witches’.
Jonathan David Gross remarks on her having "carved out an identity
for herself that transcended social norms, a gesture anticipated by her pose as
a witch in a coven, brewing up mischief"
A second version (below)
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Anne Seymour Damer. The Marble Self Portraits.
The most interesting of these busts is perhaps the bust in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum inscribed by Joseph Nollekens (no date unfortunately).
The Museum website suggests that it is a bust of the Duchess of Devonshire.
I suggest here that it might be a Nollekens copy of a self portrait by Mrs Damer.
This is dangerous territory but there is a certain generalised look to her busts
...........
The Marble Bust - A Self Portrait.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Presented to the Uffizi Gallery in 1778.
1778.
Biographical Dictionary of British Sculptors pub. Yale 2009. notes several including the BM version.
it also notes 2 untraced self portraits - 1785 large as life untraced and 1786 Accademia de St Luca
and another undated self portrait at Drayton House, Northants.
...................
The British Museum Bust of Mrs Damer.
Engraving of her Self Portrait Bust.
The bust was Destroyed by enemy action in 1941.
See - Portrait Sculpture Catalogue of the British Museum... Aileen Dawson pub. 1999. p.90.
Dated 1823 - this is probably the date it was bequeathed or presented to the Museum by Richard Payne Knight (d. 1824).
It is a version of the bust presented to the Uffizi Gallery Florence in 1788 see above.
The bust can be seen on top of the cases in The Medal Room in photographs of c. 1930.
The Bust was inscribed -
Hanc sui-ipsius effigiem. Ad vota veteris amici Richardi
Payne Knight, sua manu fecit Anna Seymour Damer.
Portrait of the bust of Anne Seymour Damer,
After a bust sculpted by herself; illustration to Dallaway's edition of Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Paintings in England' (London: 1827-28); proof before letters. c.1827.
Etching and stipple, printed on chine collé.
....................................
The Nollekens Bust at Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
It is inscribed on the back of the prop -
Nollekens Ft.
from a Model by
the Hon. Mrs Damer.
The website suggests "Ideal Portrait (Georgiana Spencer, The Duchess of
Devonshire?)"
There is recorded a missing bust of Lady Elizabeth Foster (later Duchess of Devonshire) of 1789, by Mrs Damer
see Biographical Dictionary of British Sculptors pub. Yale 2009.
It notes several other self portraits including the BM version, it also notes 2 untraced self portraits - 1785 large as life untraced, and 1786 Accademia de St Luca,
and another undated self portrait at Drayton House, Northants.
Given the somewhat generalised features of her female portraits it is difficult to be positive of the identification of the sitter here - I leave it to the viewer to decide!
.........................
Marble statue of the Hon Mrs Anne Seymour Damer.
Attributed to Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751-1801).
as the Muse of Sculpture.
c. 1778.
It is distinctly possible that the marble was not carved by Ceracchi but was made in the studio of Richard Westmacott (1747 - 1808). The attribution to Westmacott was made in his lifetime
A terracotta for this group, dated to around 1778, is
mentioned by P. Masini(6) as being recorded by Ulysse Desportes not long before
1989, but no location is given and it has not been possible to discover its
whereabouts.
Donated to the BM by Lord Frederick Campbell - As the donor died in 1816, the work must have been donated before this date, but no record has so far been found.
Lord Frederick Campbell was the sitter's uncle, and may have had the statue carved from the model, according to JT Smith, Nollekens..... 1828.
Dimensions -
Height: Height: 181 centimetres
Length: Length: 59 centimetres (plinth) (plinth)
Depth: Depth: 46 centimetres (plinth) (plinth)
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_OA-10540
She is holding the model of a River perhaps a version of that in the Accedemia di San Luca in Rome by Giambologna.
From the BM Website -
"Displayed: 1824, removed 'to the spot on which the Hindoo Monument now stands between the Iron Gates, against the Pier facing the Great Stair-Case of the Museum' (Trustees' Minutes, 12 June 1824;
a drawing for the proposed site is in the Museum Archive, ; 1828,
'in the Hall of the British Museum' (Smith, 1828, II, p. 120); 1832, Entrance Hall (Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum, 27th edn, p. 2);
1859, Entrance Hall (A Guide to the Exhibition Rooms of the Departments of Natural History and Antiquities, p. iv, Against the wall to the south side of the staircase is a statue by Westmacott of the Hon. Mrs Seymour Damer, holding in her hands a small figure of the genius of the Thames ?, sculptured by herself); 1869,
Entrance Hall (Guide, p. iv); transfer to National Portrait Gallery or Victoria and Albert Museum sanctioned by Trustees 10 December 1932, but turned down by both in January 1933; 1930s,
'Entrance Hall, on the left of the Main Staircase'
(P&D notebook, p. 129); until 1968, staircase vestibule, north end of
King's Library, when moved to foot of north-east staircase facing down King's
Library (letter 30 May 1968, on file in MLA Dept); 1993, Postcard Gallery, end
wall by east door; 1994, Gallery 46 'Europe 1400-1800' (shown in situ in Fox,
1995, p. 393, fig. 49)"
...........
Mrs Damer, commenced modelling in terracotta after receiving (two or three lessons Walpole Anecdotes) in modelling from Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751 - 1801) who was working in England from 1773 - 1780 - he exhibited at the Royal Academy- it is thought that Walpole introduced them.
Ceracchi was apparently smitten by her "graceful nymph-like person" and "begged her to sit to him and he made a most charming statue of her whole length as large as life in terracotta" (Walpole Anecdotes 1937, 142).
....................
JT Smith in Nollekens and his Times pub 1828 is strangely silent on Mrs Damer except to say -
"A fourth sculptor, contemporary with Bacon, Banks and Nollekens, was Giuseppe Ceracchi, who came to England in 1773, and was employed in bas-relief work by Adam, and other architects.
To him, in all probability, is due much of the beautiful relief- work we admire in the domestic decoration of Adam's houses.
He was the master of the Hon. Mrs. Damer, and at one time found a great deal of employment in London. But he was of a restless spirit, and soon migrated to Paris, where he was concerned, in 1801, in a plot to assassinate Napoleon. Being condemned to death, he was dragged to the guillotine, dressed as a Roman Emperor, in a classical car which he had himself designed".
Giuseppe Ceracchi trained in Rome with Tommaso Righi, then continued his studies at the Accademia di San Luca.
In 1773 he travelled to London to work with Agostino Carlini, a founding member of the Royal Academy. Ceracchi exhibited busts at the Royal Academy in the late 1770s and modelled architectural ornaments and bas-relief panels for Robert Adam.
In 1778 Ceracchi sculpted the statues of Temperance and Fortitude cast in Portland stone for Strand façade of Sir William Chambers’ Somerset House, London. It was possibly through Carlini that he first met Mrs Damer, Carlini had been commissioned by her father-in-law, Lord Dorchester, to produce an impressive and moving monument to himself and his wife at Milton Abbey.
Walpole tells us that Ceracchi taught Damer to model, certainly Ceracchi was a virtuosic modeller in terracotta, several bold portrait busts survive, including a celebrated depiction of George Washington now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes.
That he taught Damer is confirmed by JT Smith who noted that Ceracchi ‘was the Honourable Mrs Damer’s master in Sculpture, as that lady declared to me herself.’
............................
Mrs Damer
by George Romney (1734 - 1802).
1779.
Unframed: 29 15/16 x 25 3/16 in. (76 x 64 cm).
It was sold on behalf of the 8th Duke of Richmond by Spink & Son Ltd on 10th December 1932 for £2762. 17. 9.
Information above very kindly provided by Clementine de la Poer Beresford at Goodwood House.
...
The portrait is at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Vassar College 124 Raymond Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604.
https://emuseum.vassar.edu/objects/11227/the-honorable-mrs-anne-seymour-damer#
Inscribed: (C, B frame member): HONBLE MRS DAMER.; (verso, UC, frame, on label): LADY ANNE DAMER by Romney/Received from Leo Butzel/6-18-54/Property of Mrs. Leonard T. Lewis; (verso, UR, frame, on label): Exhibition of Works of....(torn off)/Leeds, 1868./No. of... or Van:...(illegible)/No. of Object:...(illegible); UC, backing board, on label: To/Lady Damer/by Romey/ property of:/Mrs. Leonard T. Lewis; (tag hanging from wire): DIA; L1983.51; (verso, UR, T stretcher bar, under backing board, on label): 1077
https://emuseum.vassar.edu/objects/11227/the-honorable-mrs-anne-seymour-damer#
This portrait of her was commissioned by her brother-in-law, the Duke of Richmond. She sat to Romney five times Sittings : 1779, April 21, 24, May 24, 31, June 5, and 9th.
The portrait resided at Goodwood, the Duke of Richmond’s estate, until 1932.
Provenance.
Commissioned by Charles 3rd Duke of Richmond.
Remained at his estate, Goodwood (sources: Ward &
Roberts, Romney, A Biographical and Critical Essay with a catalogue RaisonnT,
1904);
Purchased by Leo Butzel, 1932.
Mrs Damer and Horace Walpole.
Nathaniel Dance Holland (1735 - 1811).
c. 1775 - 80.
Waldegrave, Chewton House, Chewton Mendip, Somerset.
Bought 1859 as ' Horace Walpole & Mrs Damer' by Angelica Kauffmann. ( Probably[ Major Crawley] sale, 23 January 1858 (18) as ' A Lady and Gentleman' after Reynolds).
Images Below Courtesy Paul Mellon Photographic Archive.
Nathaniel Dance was third son of architect George Dance the Elder, Dance (he added the 'Holland' suffix later in life) studied art under Francis Hayman, and like many contemporaries went to Italy. There he met Angelica Kauffman.
.
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Anne Seymour Damer.
Richard Cosway.
60 x 48 mm
They say 1785.
Watercolour on Ivory.
in 'Elizabethan' costume - black dress with red ribbons, edged with lace and pearls, white ruff edged in black and encircled with pearls, powdered hair, blue-green eyes, pale complexion, smiling expression; blue backgrounds scumbled in purple round the hair.
Image courtesy National Portrait Gallery.
NPG say -
Several of Richard Cosway's portraits of Mrs Damer are recorded:
(1) above NPG 5236 being the earliest;
(2) below This portrait was developed into another known from Schiavonetti's stipple engraving published 1 February 1791 and again 25 March 1794 in which the face is the same but the hair longer and more bushy and the dress contemporary; it was used later as an illustration in Cunningham's Lives, III, 1830.
(3) A pencil drawing 1790 was exhibited 'Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill' at Orleans House, Twickenham 1980 (223) lent by the Earl Waldegrave, inscribed on the back by Horace Walpole: 'Mrs Damer in the attitude of having just finished her bust of the young Paris. Drawn by Rich. Cosway 1790. H.W.';
(4) Whole-length standing with mallet, chisel and bust on pedestal, engraved by Greatbach and published Richard Bentley 1857 'From a drawing formerly at Strawberry Hill', and in Strawberry Hill sale 14 May 1842 (14) (see engraving illustrated below).
(5) Pencil drawing of Mrs Damer and Miss Berry in the library at Strawberry Hill, Sotheby's 14 March 1956 (626).
Provenance
Christie's 18 December 1973 (89) bought M. S. Wallis;
Christie's 28 November 1978 (36) bought Leggatt for the NPG.
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.............................
Mrs Damer.
John Smart (1741- 1811).
62 mm. high.
Pencil and watercolour on card, the reverse inscribed in the
artist’s hand ‘Mrs Damer’
Ornate ormolu frame, the reverse inscribed by
Arthur Jaffe with sitter's biography.
Sold by Christie's Lot 67, 17 November 2016.
Provenance -
By descent from the artist -
Lilian Mary Dyer, née Bose (1871-1955), a great-granddaughter of the artist;
Christie’s, London, 26 November 1937, lot
35, as ‘Portrait of Mrs Damer’ (8 gns. to Agnew).
...............
Prince Henry Duke of Cumberland.
John Smart.
1770's.
Included here because of the similarity of the frames.
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Prince-Henry--Duke-of-Cumberland-and-Str/565BE9004F5C7855
Another version was previously with Historical Portraits.
....................
Mrs Damer. aged about 40.
John Dowman.
31.4 x 23.7 cms.
1787.
British Museum.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1936-1116-31-22
Inscribed In black ink below, "The Hon Mrs
Damer 1787 / a Whole-Length for the Duke of Richmond / amused herself in
Sculpture", and added directly after this in pencil in a different hand,
"& ex. at the RA / a Bust of the great Nelson / Full length Statue of
herself in the Hall of the B. Museum".
This drawing is in Volume 6 of the Fourth Series of
Downman's 'First Sketches of Portraits of distinguished persons'. For further
details see 1936,1116.27.1.
Another later portrait of Mrs Damer, while 'modeling' is
found in Volume 3 of the Third Series (1967,1014.181.141), and a contemporary
one in Volume 1 of the First Series in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Munro, Jane,
'John Downman 1750-1824: Landscape, figure studies and portraits of
'Distinguished persons' (Cambridge 1996), p.81, no2314.9).
My thoughts -Probably the most candid and realistic of her portraits!!! (My Italics)
.........................
Mrs Damer.
John Dowman.
1788.
British Museum.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1967-1014-181-141
...........................
Mrs Damer.
by Harriet Carr (Cheney) (1771 - 1848).
1788.
21.60 x 16.50 cm
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/2253
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Carr
.........................
The Damerian Apollo.
William Holland.
1789.
24.9 x 30.0 cm
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-5874
Lettered: 'London Pub. by Wm Holland, Garrick's Richard, N°
50 Oxford Street July. 1. 1789.' and 'In Holland's Exhibition Rooms may be seen
the largest collection in Europe of Humorous Prints, Admitce I Shilg.'
........................
Mrs Damer.
Richard Cosway.
Huntington Library.
The attribution as a portrait of Mrs Damer should be treated with caution.
The Library offers no further information.
https://emuseum.huntington.org/people/115/richard-cosway/objects
.............................
Mrs Damer.
Schiavonetti 1765 - 1810) after Richard Cosway (1742 - 1821).
Proof before letters. 1791.
Stipple, printed in brown ink
1791.
The Coloured Version below Courtesy Yale University Library.
https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16729797
Two more Cosway Sketches of Mrs Damer.
Both images from the Paul Mellon Photographic Archive.
Lodi Archive.
Mrs D. was the half sister of the 3rd Duchess of Richmond
whose home was Goodwood House, and whose husband founded Goodwood Racecourse.
............................
Mrs Damer.
Richard Cosway
1790.
Signed and dated on verso (transferred from recto): “Rdus. Cosway R.A. Primarius Pictor Serenissimi Walliae Principis Fecit 1790”.; in HW’s hand on verso: “Mrs Damer in the attitude of having just finished her bust of the young Paris. Drawn by Richd. Cosw
The Trustees of the Waldegrave Chattels Trust.
image below from -
This drawing appears on page 162 in Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill ed. Michael Snodin pub Yale 2009.
with ref Trustees Waldegrave Chattels Trust, Cat. 261.
..............................
Mrs Damer - Engraving after Angelica Kauffman by Hayter.
see the original oil painting by Kauffman above
`1792.
Lettered below image with title, and further line:
"From and Original in the possession of the Right Honble Genl
Conway"; production detail: "A: Kauffman R: A: pinx:", "T:
Ryder sculp:"; publication line: "London. Publish'd as the Act
directs Feby 1st 1792 by S Watts, No 9 Kennington Cross, Lambeth / To be had of
T Ryder, No 43 Great Tichfield St, Oxford Road'
............................
Mrs Damer
John Dowman (1750 - 1824).
Private Collection.
https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/celebrating-sculptress-anne-seymour-damer/
Exhibition 2021.
In this drawing, on loan from a private collection, we see her working on a bust of the Polish Prince Lubomirski, as the young Bacchus (the bust is today held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford).
Downman’s portrait, dated 1793, represents Anne at the age of 43 and is the most detailed representation of her while at work.
Mrs Damer.
by Walker.
Stipple engraving.
16 x 9 cms.
Illustration to 'Lady's Monthly Museum' (1801).
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/27272
.........................
Mrs Damer.
Engraved by Hopwood after G.C.?
Stipple Engraving
16.7 x 9.7 cms.
Dated 1812.
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/27271
Portraits of Miss Mary Berry and Mrs. Anne Damer seated across a table from each other in the Library at Strawberry Hill.
Title in pencil below image added later in a different hand
from the note on the verso.
Note on verso in black ink in a contemporary hand: Mrs.
Seymour Damer & Miss Berry in the Library at Strawberry Hill, a sketch by
Cosway.
No longer thought to be in the hand of Cosway.
..........................
Possibly Anne Seymour Damer.
Attributed to Daniel Gardner (1750 - 1805).
Previously with Messrs Bagshawe.
This previously unpublished picture by Daniel Gardner of Anne Seymour Damer is an important addition to the iconography of this highly unusual artist, generally regarded as England’s foremost female sculptor of the 18th century.
The present portrait, recently brought to light by Bagshawe Fine Art, is clearly of Anne Damer. Her facial features, particularly her long aquiline nose, are highly recognizeable. But so too of course is the sculpted head with which she is posed.
This is a clay model for one of her sculptures “A Daughter of Niobe”, on which she worked around 1780 or 1781.
https://www.bagshawes.com/archive/portrait-of-the-sculptor-anne-seymour-damer
.........................
For a selection of the writings etc on the works of Mrs Damer in no particular order see -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uycZm2mrWmw
.............
For Susan Benforado's Thesis University of New Mexico, 1986.
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=arth_etds
https://www.journal18.org/nq/shock-dog-new-sculpture-at-the-met-by-paris-amanda-spies-gans/
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:63916
https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/13464.pdf
https://walpole.library.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Artful-Nature_booklet_v6-accessible.pdf
