19th Century Portrait Silhouette Rebecca Holmes Of Gawdy Hall Norfolk England C 1810

This wonderful miniature portrait silhouette was painted in England during the early 19th century, circa 1807-1810. The silhouette is painted on card and is housed behind convex glass in its original papier mache frame. If you tilt the portrait to a light source you will see much costume detail rendered in fine strokes of gum arabic (a high gloss varnish type fluid). She wears a typical lace day cap of the 1807-1810 period with matching lace ties under her chin. Her dress is again typical of the period with square neckline and sheer fabric modesty panel tuck in.

We find the sitter named verso in an inscription reading ‘Rebecca, wife of Gervas Holmes, daughter of Rev’d Thomas Grimwood, died May 1817. Mother of Rev’d John Holmes, great grandmother of John Sancroft Holmes.’

It is a bonus to discover a silhouette with the sitter's details to the reverse. As this gives us an insight in to the sitters family. Rebecca came from a wealthy English family with connections to an Arch Bishop Sancroft. As mentioned to the reverse of the silhouette portrait, John Sancroft Holmes of Gawdy Hall (b 1847 – d 1920) was the great grandson of the sitter. Rebecca also married in to another wealthy English family, the Holmes.

Please see the silhouette portrait of her husband The Reverend Gervas Holmes by the celebrated silhouettist John Miers that we are selling separately.

THE SITTER
The sitter is Rebecca Holmes, née Grimwood (b 1743 – d 1817). Rebecca was the daughter of The Reverend Thomas Grimwood (b 1705 – d 1778) and Elizabeth Carolina Lechmere (b 1678 - d 1754) both English gentry.

Rebecca married the Reverend Gervas Holmes (b 1741 – d 1796) in Dedham, Essex in 1773. The Rev’d Gervas Holmes inherited Gawdy Hall in 1778 from his brother in law, John Wogan. Gawdy Hall was built in the 1500s on the site of Edward Bacon's Holbrook Hall in Redenhall by the Gawdy family. The Gawdy's were a prominent family of lawyers who flourished in Norfolk and Suffolk in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The family was extremely influential rubbing shoulders with the highest dignitaries of the land . So much so that Queen Elizabeth 1 is said to have stayed at Gawdy Hall during the year 1578. In 1666 Gawdy Hall passed to the Wogan family of Pembrokeshire.

The hall was subsequently passed down to Rebecca and Gervas’s children, one of which was the Reverend John Holmes (b 1774 – d 1831). The Homes family held the estate up until 1938 when it was sold at auction. By this time the Hall had fallen in to bad repair. Very high taxes were put on stately homes during this pre-war period, and the sad decision was taken to demolish the Hall in 1939. The larger remains of the Gawdy Estate are still active to this day.

Measuring: Frame width 5 inch (12.5 cm) by height 5.75 inch (14.5 cm). Aperture width 2.75 inch (7 cm) by height 3 3/8 inch (8.5 cm). Please excuse the camera reflection in our first image, the convex glass makes photography a bit of a nightmare!!

Condition: Light surface wear commensurate with age, some minor surface chips to bottom edge of frame. Only one pin remaining to hanger.

ITEM ID:14146