Beschreibung:

ATTRIBUTED TO SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE (BRITISH 1769 -1830) PORTRAIT OF A YOUND GIRL WITH A SHEEP, POSSIBLY LOUISA CLARA BOSANQUET (1826-1922), LATER MRS HORACE MEYER Oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5cm (30 x 25 in.)Provenance: Probably Sir Michael Walker Private collection, UK. Recent research into the chalk inscription to the stretcher of the present lot, suggests that the picture was probably owned by the British diplomat Sir Michael Walker (1916 - 2001). One of Walker's ancestors, David Bevan (1774 - 1846) was one of the bankers who founded Barclay, Bevan and Co., which went on to become Barclays Bank. Bevan's wife, Favell Bourke Lee was painted by Lawrence (see, Bonhams, Old Master Pictures, 25 October 2017, lot 44), and it is therefore reasonable to suggest that her granddaughter Louisa Clara Bosanquet (B.1826), may also have been painted by the artist. The suggestion of Louisa as a candidate for the sitter in the present lot becomes even more compelling when we learn that, though her aunt Mrs. Thomas Mortimer she had a link to a pet sheep which she is known to have helped to bathe in the sea. In addition to a sheep, Mortimer, who wrote some of the most educational children's books of the nineteenth century (such as The Peep of Day), had a menagerie of pets including a parrot which she took to bed, and a donkey. As Mortimer's favourite niece the pair went on to write two books together. The present lot is comparable to Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of Lady Alexandrina Vane, No. 785, and George Vane-Tempest, No. 512 (Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence - A Complete Catalogue of the Oil Paintings).