Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces (1763–65): Artwork and History

Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces (1763–65) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Sir Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723–1792).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Dressed in Classically inspired robes, Lady Sarah Bunbury pours a libation of oil as an offering to the Three Graces, positioned behind her. Her soon-to-be husband, Charles Bunbury, commissioned this marriage portrait, making her association with the Graces—symbols of fertility and attendants to the Roman goddess of love, Venus—all the more appropriate. The first president of the Royal Academy in London, Sir Joshua Reynolds urged his fellow artists to paint historical and edifying subjects based on the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. As a portrait painter, he developed a grand style that ennobled the genre by giving his sitters Classical attributes and poses.

Object facts

• Title: Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces
• Date: 1763–65
• Artist attribution: Sir Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723–1792)
• Place of origin: England
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 242.6 × 151.5 cm (95 1/2 × 59 3/4 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1922.4468

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball Collection

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.