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Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces
1763 - 1765
Lady Sarah Bunbury was famous as the society beauty who attracted the attention of the future King George III when she was only fifteen. George was persuaded to marry a German princess instead of her, and a year after the royal marriage, Lady Sarah wed Sir Charles Bunbury in a match that lasted only a short while. In this portrait, Sir Joshua Reynolds—the first president of the Royal Academy and a champion of the importance of classical artistic models—conferred upon her a flattering honorary citizenship in the ancient world. Dressed in a loose, vaguely Roman costume and surrounded by the art and artifacts of antiquity, Lady Sarah is cast as a devotee of the Three Graces, symbols of generosity and the mythical companions of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Lady Sarah pours a libation into a smoking tripod, and one of the Graces seems to offer her a wreath, as if inviting the aristocratic beauty to join their number. As an academician, Reynolds valued historical subjects, but as a practicing painter, he made his living largely through portraiture. In this and other grand portraits, he found a way of combining the requirements of his patrons with the prestige of the classical tradition. (Source: Art Institute of Chicago)
- Size:
- 242.6 × 151.5 cm (95 1/2 × 59 3/4 in.)
- Medium:
- Oil on canvas
- License:
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- For more:
- https://www.artic.edu/artworks/4788/lady-sarah-bunbury-sacr…
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