- Museum number
- 1904,0614.6
- Description
-
Portrait of Mrs Udny at Teddington, Middlesex; whole-length to front, wearing long dress and head-dress, carrying flowers, standing on lower step of the exterior of a building with columns
Graphite, with watercolour and bodycolour, on artist's wash line mount
- Production date
- 1800-1802 (around)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 229 millimetres
-
Width: 140 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The following is the entry on this drawing from S. Lloyd and K. Sloan, 'The Intimate Portrait', exh. cat. SNPG and BM P&D, 2008-9, cat. no. 126:
Margaret (‘Martha’) Jordan married, as his second wife, the West India merchant and collector Robert Fullarton Udny (1722-1802), of Teddington, Middlesex and Udny Castle, Aberdeenshire. His brother John Udny (1727-1800) was British vice-consul at Leghorn (Livorno). Robert Udny, who was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1785, formed a notable collection of Old Master paintings and drawings, foremost among which was the life-size cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci for the Madonna and Child with St Anne and the infant St John the Baptist, which he presented to the Royal Academy (now NG London). Cosway drew a memorial to Udny in pen ink showing Minerva instructing two putti how to draw, while another draws a curtain back from a sculpted pyramid, decorated with roundels Leonardo, Raphael, Giulio Romano, Correggio, Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck, Guido Reni and Domenichino (Statens Museum, Copenhagen). This drawing was etched by P. Condé, probably in 1802, and titled, ‘Robt. Udny Esqr. Teddington’ (Daniell 1890, p.48, no.194). Cosway also painted an untraced miniature of Udny, which was engraved in stipple by W. Gardiner and titled, ‘Robt. Udny of Udny Esqr.’ (Daniell 1890, p.37, no. 149).
Cosway was a close friend of Robert Udny, and a mutual passion was their avid collecting of Old Master paintings and drawings. After Udny died, it was rumoured that his widow became Cosway’s mistress, while the latter’s wife, Maria Cosway, from whom he was separated, was abroad in Paris, Lyons and Lodi between 1801 and 1815. It is known that, when Richard Cosway died suddenly in his carriage in London on 4 July 1821, he was accompanied by Maria, the daughter of Robert Udny by his first wife Miss Hougham, who in 1785 had married Sir William Cunynghame of Livingstone and Milncraig. Cosway, in his drawing of Martha Udny, shows her full length in the garden of at her home in Teddington, facing the viewer and about to step onto the lower step of a portico. She wears a black shawl over her head, the end of which is looped over her right arm, and she carries a bouquet of flowers in her right hand. This shawl must have been added into this austerely beautiful portrait of Martha Udny after her husband had died in 1802, as in the stipple by Bartolozzi after the drawing she is shown wearing a turban. SL
SELECTED LITERATURE: F. B. Daniell, 'Catalogue Raisonné of the engraved works of Richard Cosway', 1890, p.37, no. 150; S. Lloyd, 'Richard and Maria Cosway', exh. SNPG Edinburgh and NPG London 1995-6, p.126, no.154; J Ingamells, 'Dictionary of British Travellers to Italy', 1997, pp.963-4
There is another drawing in the collection once attributed to Cosway which is said to depict Mrs Udny but which is now thought possibly to be a fake (1900,0613.64).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1995 Aug-Oct, Edinburgh, Scottish NPG, 'Regency Artists', no. 154
1995/6 Nov-Feb, London, NPG, 'Regency Artists', no. 154
2008/9 Oct-Jan, Edinburgh, SNPG, 'Intimate Portrait', no. 126
2009 Mar-May, London, BM, Room 90, 'IntimatePortrait', no. 126
- Acquisition date
- 1904
- Acquisition notes
- This drawing was purchased from Colnaghi's in 1904 as 'Mrs Udney at Teddington, Middlesex'.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1904,0614.6