Portraits of Elizabeth Craven - Good, Bad and Dubious

Engraving by William Ridley, based on Sir Joshua Reynolds' 

portrait of Elizabeth Craven.

What did Elizabeth Craven really look like? There are quite a lot of surviving portraits of her, but they are not very like each other. When she was aged sixteen, she was painted by the Continental artist Angelica Kauffman, who was only in her early twenties herself. Kauffman was an exception to the rule that all professional artists had to be men, and her depictions of society ladies as mythological goddesses were fashionable in Georgian high society.

She chose to portray Elizabeth in the guise of Hebe, goddess of Youth, in classical robes that show off her dazzling white skin and delicate hands. The features are indistinct and somewhat conventionalized, but if you compare them to the next picture, an oil sketch by George Romney, it is plausible that both depict the same person. 

Lady with a Lyre: Elizabeth Craven by George Romney c.1770.

This time she is dressed in the fashions of 1770, but she is still a modest and somewhat diffident young woman. The small harp she is holding is in the shape of a classical lyre. The images in the two paintings show the same hairstyle and the same little peak in the middle of the hairline. The neck, arms and hands form a graceful, harmonious flow. 

Now compare both of them to this portrait of Elizabeth done by Romney a few years later for Horace Walpole. See that little peak in the middle of the forehead? The nose is more distinct in shape and the artist has made much of the long, white swan-like neck. The hair is considerably more auburn in hue. 

It is very likely that the earlier paintings of Elizabeth darkened her hair, as any hint of red was considered a blemish. 18th-century newspaper carry advertisements for hair-dye that promise to disguise hair that is "grey, white or red".

  Romney's portrait was much admired and widely copied, but not always with success. This first copy is rather lack-lustre.

This second copy of the Romney portrait just slightly exaggerates the length and angle of the neck, the size of the nose, and the pointy peak in the middle of the forehead.

The result is awful, a stooping and severe image that looks less swan-like than witch-like. What a difference a millimetre here or a few degrees there can make!

The most flattering portrait of Elizabeth is surely this full-length one by Thomas Beach, done c.1774, which shows her standing next to her harp. She is no longer a diffident young bride, but a confident and very sexy woman. Look at the hairline of the forehead - there is that little peak, and the curve at the temples. The features are recognizably those shown in Romney's oval portrait, and travestied in the square copy. 

One of my favourite depictions of Elizabeth Craven is this portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Engraving by William Ridley, based on Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Elizabeth Craven (March 1781) published by Vernor & Hood, after Sir Joshua Reynolds

 published 31 March 1801 

NPG D14347

She is leaning affectionately over her youngest daughter, Arabella, who was about six years old. There is a glint of delicate amusement, even mischief, in her face. The original portrait was bought by Lord Egremont and is in the collection at Petworth House.

This drawing of Elizabeth Craven done when she was aged at least forty shows a mature and poised woman. It appeared in a book of 1804 and can be dated from the hairstyle, with soft curls surrounding the face, and the headwear. 

The features are recognizable as those shown in Romney's painting, but the drawing has clearly set out to be fair rather than flattering. The face is intelligent and agreeable, and the little Mona Lisa smile is very serene. The artist may have been Sophie de Tott, who did portraits of several of Craven's family around this time.

In the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, there is this last miniature by Ozias Humphry dated 1770, which is labelled as "Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, c.1770". 

I wonder if this is a misidentification. It is just too different, the nose being much more arched, and the hair much darker. The eyes are blue while those in all the other portraits are hazel, the eyebrows are too heavy and the ears also appear to be at a curious angle. Why is it identified as Elizabeth Craven? 

We can only guess. Elizabeth had two younger sisters, Mary and Louisa, and perhaps the miniature is portraying one of them.  It may even be one of her daughters. But it is very unlikely to be her.

If you would like to know more about Elizabeth Craven, her life, her writings, her loves and her scandals, read

Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European

by Julia Gasper

published by Vernon Press.

https://vernonpress.com/title?id=334

A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.
Volume 1 of A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A, Sir Edward Robert Pearce Edgcumbe, Algernon Graves, William Vine Cronin
Publisher subscription, 1899 p.205

http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?oid=18063#1

23 Jun 2017 - Elizabeth Craven's fascinating life was full of travel, love-affairs and scandals but this biography, the first to appear for a century, is the only one ...