A Painting of the Berkeley Family at Berkeley Castle Gloucestershire

This very unusual painting hangs at Berkeley Castle and is described as The Berkeley and Granard Family Group. Painted by Ozias Humphry, who did many portraits of the Craven family, both individually and collectively, it is dated 1780. An inscription in the top right corner names everybody in it. The painting shows us Elizabeth Craven, who was born a Berkeley, in company with her elder sister Georgiana and both of her brothers. And this is not merely a portrait, it is a scene where what is happening is amusing and very typical of Elizabeth Craven. 
      Paintings of Elizabeth's elder sister, Lady Georgiana Berkeley, who became Countess of Granard, are few and far between. This may be the only painting or drawing to survive, and shows us why she was regarded as a beauty. She is tall, fair-haired and commanding, with a perfect classical profile. But is there a touch too much rouge on those cheeks? Queen Charlotte thought so. The dress she is wearing is in the style known as "robe retroussée", which means a rolled-up skirt. The overskirt is looped up to reveal an underskirt in the same material. Georgiana, headstrong in her youth and eccentric in her old age, had many children of her own, who are not shown here.
       To the right of the picture, on what appears to be the portico of a house, stand her two brothers. The elder one, Frederick, 5th Earl of Berkeley, is wearing the red coat with black lapels of the Gloucestershire militia, which he commanded when at home at Berkeley Castle. He loved this gaudy uniform and had been painted wearing it fifteen years earlier when he came of age.

Frederick, 5th Earl of Berkeley, by Pompeo Batoni, 1765.

Frederick was aged 35 in 1780, five years older than Elizabeth, and still unmarried, to the despair of his mother, and all match-making matrons. He is slightly plump and his hair is starting to recede.
       Behind him, slightly in the shadows, is a younger man in naval uniform. This is his younger brother, the Hon. George Cranfield Berkeley, born in 1753. He had been sent into the navy very young, as was then the custom. By 1780 he was 27 and had risen to the rank of Captain. He had already sailed to America many times, serving in the War of Independence, and all around the Mediterranean. George, like Frederick, was unmarried, not however because he wished to be, but because his profession with its risks and long absences, was a drawback, and kept him off the lists of eligible bachelors.  
       On the left is Elizabeth Craven, with three of her children, who are grouped affectionately around her, giving the impression that they are having a lot of fun. Some game is taking place, but what is it? Curiously, Elizabeth herself is dressed in the costume of a gypsy woman, plain and shabby compared to the finery of her sister and brothers. She has a scarf over her head, and her children are dressed in simple fashion like cottage children. They are barefooted, clinging to her and one is actually on her back, which is charming.
          She stands holding the hand that Georgiana extends to her, and this is all part of an elaborate charade. She is playing the role of a gypsy fortune-teller and reading the palms of all her own family. The children are gleefully taking part in the game, which is very akin to the kind of theatricals she liked to put on in her home or in private theatres. Elizabeth was a playwright, and this game of charades is just the sort of entertainment she loved to devise, and to act in.
     The three children she has with her are identified as her three sons, William (later Lord Craven), Henry Berkeley Craven, and Keppel Craven. This is surprising, as the eldest boy has black hair, not like what is shown in other portraits of little William.

Could it be that in the group picture he is wearing a wig? In 1780 he would have been aged 10. We know the identifications of the two older children are right as Humphry's sketches for the painting survive, and are preserved in the Turner collection. Look at what William is holding in his hand. At first, it appears to be just a piece of crumpled paper or a handkerchief, but look more closely and you will see that it is actually a comic mask, the sort of mask actors wore in the Commedia del'Arte, and which were still worn to masquerades for fun in the 18th century. It is a symbol of acting, Elizabeth's passion and something that would certainly be important in William's future.
      The boy on Elizabeth's back appears to be the next in age, so he must be Henry Augustus Berkeley Craven, who was born in December 1776, making him about four in this picture. His face is the picture of mischief. The smallest child clings shyly to Elizabeth's skirt. If this is Keppel Craven, born in April 1779, he must have been less than two years old. It is quite surprising that he is walking, as children in this period were not encouraged to walk early - quite the contrary, in case they developed rickets. He is wearing a gown, which was quite usual for small boys then, and it  appears to be made of the same drab fabric as his mother's costume.
Keppel was later said to be an excellent actor, and no wonder, if he started at this age, when hardly out of the cradle.
         So the painting shows the family gathered together and enjoying a game. I suggest it may be based on what took place at a family gathering at Berkeley Castle or at Benham in Berkshire. 
Elizabeth is posing as a fortune-teller, and amusing them all by predicting their futures. Either she composed or extemporized some tale for each of them. If a gypsy had read Elizabeth's hand at that time, what extraordinary things they would have had to predict to come anywhere near the truth!

To find out more about Elizabeth Craven, her life and her writings, read Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European by Julia Gasper

published by Vernon Press.

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

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 to focus on her as a writer...

(. Painting in oil in the possession of the Earl of Berkeley.) Oil painting 1780.  It depicts Lady Granard with Lord Craven and Lord Berkeley behind her. Coming to meet them is Lady Craven with three children, she being attired as a Gipsy Fortune Teller.

..In the Turner collection are the sketches for two of those represented in this picture, the Hon William Craven and the Hon Berkeley Craven. We have an allusion to the picture in a letter which Humphry addressed to Lady Mulgrave on the 16th of October, 1779.

Full text of "Life and works of Ozias Humphry, R. A." - Internet Archive

https://archive.org/stream/lifeworksofozias00will/lifeworksofozias00will_djvu.txt

I. List of Pictures and Miniatures of Ozias Humphry known to exist AND ...... the hills and mountains of Wales, Berkeley Castle, 1 and the City of Gloucester. ...... 6 d. for Lady Craven, the same amount for the portrait of Lady Granard, and the ...