Portrait of the Hon. Anne Annesley, later Countess of Mountnorris (c. 1800): Art, History and Details

Portrait of the Hon. Anne Annesley, later Countess of Mountnorris (c. 1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Richard Cosway (British, 1742–1821).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Anne Annesley (née Courtenay, 1774–1835) was the eighth daughter of William 2nd Viscount Courtenay, and sister of William 3rd Viscount Courtenay, who commissioned numerous paintings of himself and his six sisters from Richard Cosway in oil and miniature. William’s expenditure for these works between 1790 and 1812 reached £1,370, a bill that wasn’t paid in full until 1820. Anne married George Annesley, later 2nd Earl of Mountnorris, in September 1790. Cosway, who frequently depicted female sitters in gauzy white gowns, lavished attention on Anne’s attire. Her pale yellow coat is lined with fur that is sensitively delineated with a combination of short brushstrokes distinct from those that form her dark, wavy hair. Fur-trimmed jackets like this one would probably have been worn indoors by women during the colder months.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of the Hon. Anne Annesley, later Countess of Mountnorris
• Date: c. 1800
• Creator attribution: Richard Cosway (British, 1742–1821)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Portrait Miniature
• Technique: watercolor on ivory in a gold frame
• Dimensions: Framed: 9 x 7.3 cm (3 9/16 x 2 7/8 in.); Unframed: 8.3 x 6.4 cm (3 1/4 x 2 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.1138

A detail from the museum

Another version of this portrait is nearly identical to the Cleveland miniature and was likely for another friend or member of Anne's family.

Collection credit

The Edward B. Greene Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Williamson, George C. Richard Cosway, R.A., and His Wife and Pupils: Miniaturists of the Eighteenth Century. London: George Bell & Sons, 1897.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures ; The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.