Richard Cosway, Portrait of Lady Charlotte FitzGerald, later 21st Baroness de Ros, 1791

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Richard Cosway, Portrait of Lady Charlotte FitzGerald, later 21st Baroness de Ros, 1791,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1328.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “Richard Cosway, Portrait of Lady Charlotte FitzGerald, later 21st Baroness de Ros, 1791,” catalogue entry. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan. The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 2, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1328.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This large portrait miniature features Charlotte Fitzgerald, later 20th Baroness de Ros of Helmsley (née Boyle, 1769–1831), who was born on May 24, 1769, Castlemartyr, Cork, Ireland. Baptized June 13, 1769, in London,¹ she was the only daughter and heiress of the Hon. Robert Walsingham, fifth son of Henry Boyle, Earl of Shannon, who took the name Walsingham on his brother’s death in 1736—although Charlotte retained the name Boyle.² Her mother, Charlotte Hanbury-Williams, was an accomplished artist and poet, like her father, as well as an intimate of collector and early art historian Horace Walpole.³

On August 4, 1791, more than a year after her mother’s death, Charlotte Boyle married Lord Henry Fitzgerald, MP, PC (1761–1829),⁴ a Lieutenant Colonel in the army, and it is likely this miniature was commissioned to mark this auspicious occasion. In 1795, she accompanied him to France, where she became a friend of Joséphine de Beauharnais, future wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1804, Lady Fitzgerald returned permanently to Ireland, and in 1806, she was named Baroness de Ros of Helmsley (a title she claimed through her mother’s lineage) after successfully petitioning the crown.⁵ Lady Fitzgerald had thirteen children in eighteen years. She died on January 9, 1831, in London at the age of sixty-one.

The present miniature depicts a luminous twenty-two-year-old bride in front of a brilliant blue background. She wears a white dress with a Van Dyck-style ruff collar and a powdered profusion of curls, partially swept up by a white headscarf with gold details that matches the sash around her waist. Originally, Cosway made the sitter a little wider through the shoulders, as pentimenti to the left and right are still apparent. Judging by the relatively large scale of the miniature, Lady Fitzgerald would have paid top price for it in 1791.⁶ Cosway specialist Stephen Lloyd estimates that the artist would have charged at least thirty, possibly forty, guineas for a miniature of this scale.⁷

Lady Fitzgerald wears a pendant of the Greek goddess Minerva attached to a string of pearls that forms a type of breastplate as it encircles her shoulders and torso. As the goddess of war and wisdom and a patroness of the arts—as well as many household crafts, including spinning—Minerva not only mirrored Lady Fitzgerald’s own artistic pursuits but also connected her to her recently deceased mother. Diarist Fanny Burney noted the young Charlotte Boyle’s interest and ability in pastel, remarking that she “inherits her mother’s Genius & fondness for painting.”⁸ Burney continued that “the mother was ‘distractedly fond’ of her daughter, whom she addressed at every other instant, incessantly manifesting her affection.”⁹ Coupled with the image of Minerva, the delicate pearls encircling Lady Fitzgerald evoke a poignant connection between two generations of artistic women, bound by shared passion, skill, and a profound, enduring love for the arts and for each other.

Notes

1. “Charlotte Boyle Walsingham,” City of Westminster Archives Centre, London; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers, ref: STG/PR/2/4, London Metropolitan Archives.

2. Robert Walsingham rose to the rank of captain and commanded the Thunderer in Admiral Augustus Keppel’s action against the Comte d’Orvilliers at the battle of Ushant in 1780. He was lost at sea during a hurricane in the West Indies later in the same year and presumed dead. See John Brooke, “Walsingham [formerly Boyle], Hon. Robert [1736–1780], of Gainsborough, Lincs.,” in Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, eds., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754–1790, online edition (1964; Martlesham, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 1985), https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/walsingham-hon-robert-1736-80. See also Neil Jeffares, “Lady Henry Fitzgerald, 20th Baroness de Ros s.j., née Charlotte Boyle,” in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 (online edition), updated July 6, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20240325152404/http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Fitzgerald.pdf.

3. Charlotte Hanbury-Williams’s father was British politician, diplomat, and poet Charles Hanbury Williams (1708–1759). For more about her father, see Hugh Chisholm, ed., “Hanbury Williams, Sir Charles,” Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 12:908.

4. The marriage record indicates that Charlotte Boyle married “The Right Honorable Henry Fitzgerald of the Parish of Saint George, Hanover Square in the county of Middlesex, England.” Lady Fitzgerald is listed as being of “this parish.” They did not marry in the church, but by special license at the house of Miss Boyle in Stratford Place. See London Church of England Parish Registers, ref: P89/MRY1/174, London Metropolitan Archives.

5. Following her mother’s death in 1790, Lady Fitzgerald petitioned King George III to claim the title of Barony of de Ros (also spelled Roos), the most ancient baronial title in England. In 1806, she succeeded, even though there were two other co-heirs to the barony, and she had only a quarter interest. In a letter from Lord Grenville to George III on June 11, 1806, he brings this issue to the king’s attention, indicating that “Lord Grenville would venture humbly to recommend” consideration of granting Lady Fitzgerald the title of de Ros. See entries for Lord Grenville to George III, June 12, 1806, and George III to Lord Grenville, June 13, 1806, in Walter Fitzpatrick, ed., Report on the Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq., preserved at Dropmore (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1912), 8:185.

6. Interestingly, there is a copy of this miniature that appeared in Fine watches, Miniatures, and Vertu at Sotheby, Parke, Bernet, New York, October 30–31, 1974, lot 199. The miniature is not signed or dated, indicating it is not the primary version. The Sotheby’s version was dated ca. 1791 based on the date of the Nelson-Atkins miniature, which is cited in the catalogue entry. I am grateful to researcher Maggie Keenan, who drew my attention to this reference.

7. As communicated during a visit by specialist Stephen Lloyd, October 2023; notes in NAMA curatorial files.

8. Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke, eds., The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Quebec: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), cited in Jeffares, “Lady Henry Fitzgerald.” Only one work of Lady Fitzgerald’s is known; it is a pastel said to represent the nymph Clytie after the celebrated Roman marble bust acquired in 1772 by Charles Townley. The pastel is discussed in Jeffares, “Lady Henry Fitzgerald.”

9. Troide and Cooke, Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, cited in Jeffares, “Lady Henry Fitzgerald.”

With S. J. Phillips, London, by 1932 [1];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Notes

[1] S. J. Phillips, a portrait miniatures’ dealer, exhibited the work at Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 between October 12 and November 5, 1932.

John Hoppner, Portrait of Charlotte Boyle-Walsingham, Lady Fitzgerald, ca. 1785–1790, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 in. (127 x 101.6 cm), sold at Old Masters Day Auction, Sotheby’s, London, July 7, 2022, lot 210.

Richard Cosway, Miniature of Baroness Charlotte de Rosa, ca. 1791, watercolor on ivory, 3 1/2 in. (8.8 cm) high, previously in the collection of Mrs. Eva Cook Chevallier Boutell, sold at Fine watches, Miniatures, and Vertu, Sotheby, Parke, Bernet, New York, October 30, 1974, lot 199.

Art Treasures Exhibition 1932, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, October 12–November 5, 1932, no. 390, as Charlotte, Baroness de Ros.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 58, as Charlotte, Baroness de Rosa [sic].

Art Treasures’ Exhibition 1932, exh. cat. (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, 1932), no. 390.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 58, p. 23, (repro.), as Charlotte, Baroness de Rosa [sic].

Fine watches, Miniatures, and Vertu (New York: Sotheby, Parke, Bernet, October 30-31, 1974), lot 199.