Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke (c. 1761): Art, History and Details

Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke (c. 1761) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Joshua Reynolds (British, 1723–1792).

The work and its context

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

Sisters Amabel (left) and Mary Jemima are shown playing on the grounds of their family’s country estate outside London. They wear loose, flowing garments invented specifically for the portrait rather than their usual outdoor dresses. Their father commissioned the painting to hang in the family’s city home in London’s St. James Square and it highlights their status as landowners. Joshua Reynolds painted this portrait after his return from Italy, where his studies inspired him to incorporate classical references. The famous ancient Roman Statue of a Girl with a Dove is echoed in Mary Jemima’s pose as she shields a dove from the family dog.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke
• Date: c. 1761
• Creator attribution: Joshua Reynolds (British, 1723–1792)
• Culture: England, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 224.5 x 201.3 x 11.4 cm (88 3/8 x 79 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 196 x 170 cm (77 3/16 x 66 15/16 in.); Former: 223.5 x 198 x 9 cm (88 x 77 15/16 x 3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.645

A detail from the museum

Her family affectionately referred to Mary Jemima (at right) as "Mouse."

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cotton, W., and John Burnet. Sir Joshua Reynolds and His Works. London, 1856.
• Cook, Clarence. Art and Artists of Our Time. New York, NY: Selmar Hess, 1888.
• Graves, Algernon, and William Vine Cronin. A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. [With Plates.]. London: H. Graves & Co, 1899.

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.