To Hoppner we are indebted for the
visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his
"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
title "Bygone Beauties,"--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning;
Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the
three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of
Rutland. These are indeed "a select series of ladies of rank and
fashion." And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs,
Arbuthnot, known as "Marcia." At this late date it gives us greeting
from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal
to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!
There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an
intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things
to all men. "The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of
taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional
chastity," and "Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my
wife," were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival.
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