A Woman, presumably a self-portrait of Susannah-Penelope Rosse

Physical description

Portrait of a woman, half-length, nearly right profile, looking to front. Features softly hatched in brown and sanguine, shadowed with blue and with some white partly blended in, black in the eyes, red in the lips, on a pale carnation ground; hair in brown wash, worked over with very dark brown and with the lights in grey and ochre gouache; dress indicated in brown wash; background a cloudy opaque grey-blue wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Place of Origin

England, Great Britain (painted)

Date

ca.1680 (painted)

Artist/maker

Susannah Penelope Rosse, born 1647 - died 1700 (artist)

Materials and Techniques

Watercolour on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book

Marks and inscriptions

'Mrs Rosse'

Dimensions

Height: 80 mm, Width: 64 mm

Object history note

Provenance: Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892

Descriptive line

Portrait miniature of a woman, presumably a self portrait by Susannah-Penelope Rosse, watercolour on vellum, ca.1680.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London: The Stationery Office in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1997.
Cat.138, pp.240-241. Full Citation:

“138 Presumed Self-Portrait
c.1680
451-1892

Oval 80 x 64mm

Features softly hatched in brown and sanguine, shadowed with blue and with some white partly blended in, black in the eyes, red in the lips, on a pale carnation ground; hair in brown wash, worked over with very dark brown and with the lights in grey and ochre gouache; dress indicated in brown wash; background a cloudy opaque grey-blue wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Condition: Surface scratches and rubs; the face engrimed and discoloured in the forehead, with retouches of May 1906; the whites treated for oxidation 1902, 1904 and 1938; otherwise sound.

Signed: Not signed. Inscribed faintly in metal-point on the back: Mrs Rosse.

Frame: From The Pocket Book; see cat. 87 [460-1892]

Provenance: As for Cat. No. 88. [Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892.]

Exhibited: As for Cat. No. 88 [South Kensington 1862, no. 2531 (the set as Cooper); BFAC 1889, p. 133, case XLI, nos 1-15 (Cooper); V&A 1983, unnumbered]; specifically, Los Angeles and Nottingham 1976-7, no 37.

Literature: As for Cat. No. 88 for general references [Williamson 1904, vol. I, pp. 51-2 (on the set, reproducing four by Rosse); Foster 1898, p. 40; Foster 1903, vol. I, p. 53 (tentatively attributing the set to Flatman); Foster 1908, p. 184 (as attributed to Cooper, but Foster would give some to Dixon; he now states that some give the poorer ones to Flatman); Catalogue of Miniatures , 1908, pp. 9-10 (as formerly attributed to Cooper); Goulding 1914-15, p. 49 (as Rosse); Long 1929, p. 377 (Rosse); Long 1930, pp. 65-6 (as by Rosse); Reynolds 1952, pp. 81-2 (Rosse); Foskett 1963, pp. 77-8; Foskett 1972, vol I, p. 481 (Rosse); Foskett 1974, p. 91 (Rosse); Reynolds 1975, specifically p. 9, no. 1, pl. 13; Foskett 1979, pp. 125-6 (following Reynolds 1975); Summary Catalogue , 1981, p. 9 (Cooper); V J Murrell, 'The Craft of the Miniaturist' , Murdoch 1981, p. 12, fig. 14 (as Cooper); V J Murrell, 'Technique and Practice', Strong 1983, p. 28, no. 1; Reynolds 1988, p. 78 and specifically pp. 59 and 78]; specifically, Williamson 1904, vol. I, pl. xxvii, no. 1; Reynolds 1975, no. 5, pl. 18 (dated c.1680); Reynolds 1988, p. 78.

The dating is crucial to the interpretation of the inscription, which could, on the face of it, specify either the artist or the sitter. If it specifies the sitter, there could again be two candidates, Susannah - Penelope herself or her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Rosse (b.c. 1620) . As to the date, Madeleine Ginsburg commented in December 1974:

This is very confusing to date from the hairstyle; the curls at ear level, the shoulder length ringlet, the hair curling softly towards the face, seem similar rather to the coiffures of the 1640s and 1650s ... After 1660 hairstyles seem subject to swifter change than in the previous decades, and quite soon the hair begins to be massed, horizontally, at ear level. There are discrepancies with an early dating; the parting is not clearly defined but blurred by an overall curliness and there is the' quiff" on the forehead which one would not expect before 1680. Since even a 1660 date would be inconsistent with an attribution to Susan Penelope Rosse who was born 1652 [ sic] I would very tentatively suggest that this miniature was a later copy of an earlier likeness and that the inconsistencies are due to a lack of comprehension of mid-century styling. In so far as I can say from the sketchy outline of the dress, the sleeve with 'vandyked' edge suggests picturesque rather than contemporary fashion. (1)

Reynolds annotated the point about the' quiff': 'I think this is crucial', and took the view that the image was of c.1680, the inconsistencies of coiffure and costume being probably due to lack of finish, He added: 'It is of Mrs Rosse in all likelihood.'

Although there is no intrinsic reason, of expression or pose, or obvious reversal as in a mirror, and despite the very real difficulty about the date, it is on balance the best interpretation of the inscription to suppose that the image is a self-portrait. The inscription is unlikely to refer to the artist, for the inscriptions in The Pocket Book seem to specify the artist only on those (Cat. Nos 88-90) which are by Cooper, while in the Rosse group, the inscriptions specify the sitter. This miniature and Cat. No. 141, which are inscribed Mrs Rosse, seem to agree in feature, and, as Reynolds pointed out, the differences could be attributable to the latter image being apparently a few years later on costume than the present miniature.

Despite the apparent anomalies of costume, the date c.1680 seems right for this miniature, so the other Mrs Rosse, the artist's mother-in-law Elizabeth, born Nuttings or Nattings, would have been too old to be the sitter, either for this or for Cat. No. 141. She had married Christopher Rosse in St Margaret's, Westminster, on 19 April 1636.

1 Minute in reply to a request from Reynolds for advice on the dating, for his 1975 publication on The Pocket Book; department files.”

Exhibition History

Artists of the Tudor Court: the portrait miniature rediscovered, 1520-1620 (Victoria and Albert Museum 09/07/1983-06/11/19833)
Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures (Burlington Fine Arts Club 1889-1889)
Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures on Loan at the South Kensington Museum (South Kensington Museum 01/01/1865-31/12/1865)
Women Artists 1550-1950 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1975-1976)

Materials

Watercolour; Vellum

Techniques

Painting

Subjects depicted

Woman; Artist; Susannah Penelope Rosse

Categories

Portraits; Paintings

Collection code

PDP