Watercolour, Portrait of the Maurice Family in Lloran House, High Street Marlborough, Wiltshire, attributed to W.F. Wainwright, about 1837, British School

Portrait of a family group in a domestic interior, a male figure to the far right, beside him to the left a young girl in pink dress stands behind a day bed on which lies a woman in patterned dress and white bonnet, to her left another young girl stands, resting her hands on the back of the day bed.

Given by Caroline Gowers née Maurice

Given by Caroline Gowers 2015

Dr David Pierce Maurice, for whom painted then by descent to Caroline Gowers nee Maurice, the great-great-granddaughter of the sitters.

This watercolour is an interesting illustration of middle-class life at the beginning of the Victorian age. Kneeling behind the chaise longue is David Pierce Maurice (1802 - 1880), the second generation in a family practice of well-to-do doctors in Marlborough, who had qualified around 1828. Reclining is his first wife Marianne, nee Bullock. They married in 1829, and she died on 25 June 1840, aged 31. She seems already to have been ill when the picture was painted. She is wearing a dress (Museum no. T.5-2015) which was gifted to the V&A with the watercolour. The couple's oldest child, Adelaide (born 8 May 1831, later to marry Rev H. Pix), stands between them, and Marianne's sister Louisa stands at the left. Louisa and Marianne were the daughters of Henry Bullock and his wife Arabella, nee Calley, of Burderop Park.

This picture is signed 'Wainwright', who may be identified with the miniaturist W.F. Wainewright (fl. 1835-1850) who exhibited at the Royal Academy six times between 1835-1850. A Mr W.F. Wainwright is also listed as having exhibited a watercolour (No. 533) at the Royal Academy on the 30 May 1840 (The Athenaeum Journal of Literature, Science and the Fine Art, London, 1840) however, it is not possible to confirm whether this was Wainewright, the miniaturist or another artist by that name.

E.448-2015