Skip to main content
Katherine (or Catherine) Read was born in Dundee, Scotland, and may have attended school in Edinburgh. [2] In her twenties, she traveled and worked in France and Italy, where she met the pastellists Maurice Quentin de la Tour and Rosalba Carriera. In 1753, she settled in London, where she found a receptive clientele for her delicately colored, Rococo-style portraits. A commission to paint a portrait of Queen Charlotte in 1761 helped to advance her reputation, and she built a solid career capturing the likenesses of princesses, viscounts, duchesses, and other members of the nobility. She exhibited with the Society of Artists between 1760 and 1772 and at the Royal Academy between 1773 and 1776.
The identity of the young woman in this half-length pastel portrait is not known. She is shown holding a small dog and engaging the viewer with a half-smile. The background is a neutral charcoal. Her light brown hair is crowned by a diaphanous gold scarf twisted into a turban and pinned with a brooch. A matching brooch, consisting of a large blue stone surrounded by pearls with a pearl drop, is pinned to the bust of her pale pink dress. A large jeweled earring adorns her left ear, and a blue shawl wraps around her arms. As Jeffares noted, her head is inclined, giving her a slightly inquisitive air. Her dark blue eyes are lively and intelligent, and her skin is creamy, deepening into a pink blush on her cheeks. Jeffares identifies the dog she holds as a “shock dog,” a shaggy-haired poodle or Maltese type with a long “shock” of rough hair. He is small, with pale fur, sparkling brown eyes, and a grave expression.
Jeffares suggests that the Cotes attribution may have been affixed to the Reynolda House pastel when it was sent to the “Exhibition of a Hundred Pastels” at the Galeries George Petit in Paris in 1908. At the time, the pastel was in the collection of Charles Wertheimer. Jeffares notes, “the only ‘saleable’ English pastels then were by Cotes or Russell, so the attribution [to Cotes] was much favoured by ambitious dealers at the time.” [3] Over the years, the work has been included in a few scholarly studies, such as the dictionary by Jeffares and Edward Mead Johnson’s 1976 catalogue of Francis Cotes’s work. Both authors relied upon an old, low resolution photograph that was probably made when the pastel was still in Wertheimer’s possession and which was published in an article in Connoisseur in 1931.[4] When Jeffares saw a new color photograph of the work, he noticed the distinctive blue undertones in the woman’s skin and was able to attribute the work to Read.
The work passed from Wertheimer’s collection to the art dealers Knoedler in New York, and then to the collection of Walter Lewisohn. By sometime around 1918, it was in the collection of Katharine Reynolds at Reynolda House, as it is pictured in a photograph of her study from that time. [5] In the early 1960s, her son-in-law Charles H. Babcock (1899–1967) gave the house and its contents, presumably including this pastel, to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection—Reynolda House, Inc.—on December18, 1964, with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Read enjoyed several years of popularity; at one point, a writer, identified by different sources as Tobias Smollett or William Hayley, penned these lines in tribute: “Let candid Justice our attention lead/To the soft crayon of the graceful Read.” [6] By the 1770s, however, commissions for portraits had slowed considerably. In her fifties, she moved with her niece to India, where a brother lived. She remained only a year before deciding to return to England, and she died on the voyage home.
Notes:
[1] Neil Jeffares, e-mail message to Allison Slaby, November 9, 2012.
[2] Biographical information drawn from the on-line edition of the entry on Katherine Read in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800 (London: Unicorn Press, 2006), 1–12. http://www.pastellists.com/articles/read.pdf
[3] Jeffares, e-mail message, November 9, 2012.
[4] Carl Winter, “Francis Cotes, R.A.,” Connoisseur, lxxxviii, Sept. 1931, 171.
[5] Barbara Mayer, Reynolda: A History of an American Country House (Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House Museum of American Art,1997), 63.
[6] Hayley, quoted in Jeffares, Dictionary, 1.
Provenance1908
M. Charles Wertheimer (1842-1911). [1]
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York. [2]
1912
Acquired by Walter Lewisohn (1880-1938), New York. [3]
From 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [4]
Notes:
[1] Notation from 1908 exhibition in Paris. Name also written on back label.
[2] Based on provenance research published in the Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 by Neil Jeffares.
[3] See Note 2.
[4] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Exhibition History1908
Exposition de Cent Pastels, Galeries Georges Petit
Paris, France (5/8/1908-6/10/1908), Cat. No. 10 (Incorrectly attributed to Francis Cotes)
Published ReferencesJeffares, Neil. Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800. (London: Unicorn Press, 2006).
Johnson, Edward Mead. Francis Cotes. Oxford, 1976, no. 297.
Carl WINTER, "Francis Cotes, R.A.", Connoisseur, LXXXVIII, IX.1931, pp. 177.
DepartmentHistoric House
Portrait of a Lady Holding a Dog
Datecirca 1765
MediumPastel on paper
DimensionsCanvas (oval): 30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Signed<no signature>
Credit LineReynolda Estate
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1966.2.4
DescriptionLong believed to be a pastel by the eighteenth-century artist Francis Cotes, this work has recently been reattributed to the Scottish-born pastellist Katherine Read (1723–1778). Neil Jeffares, author of Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800, notes that the composition is not at all typical of Cotes, but that it is “entirely typical of [Read’s] work. The heavily inclined head is typical; when Cotes uses it, the sitter’s look is away from the viewer, to avoid the appearance of coquettishness, but Read usually allows her sitter to look directly at the viewer, as here. But the key discriminators are her drawing of the hands, with their stylised, elongated fingers, the treatment of the draperies and hair, and her depiction of the flesh, which she builds up on a bluish background which she allows to suffuse the final image in a uniquely personal effect.” [1]Katherine (or Catherine) Read was born in Dundee, Scotland, and may have attended school in Edinburgh. [2] In her twenties, she traveled and worked in France and Italy, where she met the pastellists Maurice Quentin de la Tour and Rosalba Carriera. In 1753, she settled in London, where she found a receptive clientele for her delicately colored, Rococo-style portraits. A commission to paint a portrait of Queen Charlotte in 1761 helped to advance her reputation, and she built a solid career capturing the likenesses of princesses, viscounts, duchesses, and other members of the nobility. She exhibited with the Society of Artists between 1760 and 1772 and at the Royal Academy between 1773 and 1776.
The identity of the young woman in this half-length pastel portrait is not known. She is shown holding a small dog and engaging the viewer with a half-smile. The background is a neutral charcoal. Her light brown hair is crowned by a diaphanous gold scarf twisted into a turban and pinned with a brooch. A matching brooch, consisting of a large blue stone surrounded by pearls with a pearl drop, is pinned to the bust of her pale pink dress. A large jeweled earring adorns her left ear, and a blue shawl wraps around her arms. As Jeffares noted, her head is inclined, giving her a slightly inquisitive air. Her dark blue eyes are lively and intelligent, and her skin is creamy, deepening into a pink blush on her cheeks. Jeffares identifies the dog she holds as a “shock dog,” a shaggy-haired poodle or Maltese type with a long “shock” of rough hair. He is small, with pale fur, sparkling brown eyes, and a grave expression.
Jeffares suggests that the Cotes attribution may have been affixed to the Reynolda House pastel when it was sent to the “Exhibition of a Hundred Pastels” at the Galeries George Petit in Paris in 1908. At the time, the pastel was in the collection of Charles Wertheimer. Jeffares notes, “the only ‘saleable’ English pastels then were by Cotes or Russell, so the attribution [to Cotes] was much favoured by ambitious dealers at the time.” [3] Over the years, the work has been included in a few scholarly studies, such as the dictionary by Jeffares and Edward Mead Johnson’s 1976 catalogue of Francis Cotes’s work. Both authors relied upon an old, low resolution photograph that was probably made when the pastel was still in Wertheimer’s possession and which was published in an article in Connoisseur in 1931.[4] When Jeffares saw a new color photograph of the work, he noticed the distinctive blue undertones in the woman’s skin and was able to attribute the work to Read.
The work passed from Wertheimer’s collection to the art dealers Knoedler in New York, and then to the collection of Walter Lewisohn. By sometime around 1918, it was in the collection of Katharine Reynolds at Reynolda House, as it is pictured in a photograph of her study from that time. [5] In the early 1960s, her son-in-law Charles H. Babcock (1899–1967) gave the house and its contents, presumably including this pastel, to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection—Reynolda House, Inc.—on December18, 1964, with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Read enjoyed several years of popularity; at one point, a writer, identified by different sources as Tobias Smollett or William Hayley, penned these lines in tribute: “Let candid Justice our attention lead/To the soft crayon of the graceful Read.” [6] By the 1770s, however, commissions for portraits had slowed considerably. In her fifties, she moved with her niece to India, where a brother lived. She remained only a year before deciding to return to England, and she died on the voyage home.
Notes:
[1] Neil Jeffares, e-mail message to Allison Slaby, November 9, 2012.
[2] Biographical information drawn from the on-line edition of the entry on Katherine Read in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800 (London: Unicorn Press, 2006), 1–12. http://www.pastellists.com/articles/read.pdf
[3] Jeffares, e-mail message, November 9, 2012.
[4] Carl Winter, “Francis Cotes, R.A.,” Connoisseur, lxxxviii, Sept. 1931, 171.
[5] Barbara Mayer, Reynolda: A History of an American Country House (Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House Museum of American Art,1997), 63.
[6] Hayley, quoted in Jeffares, Dictionary, 1.
Provenance1908
M. Charles Wertheimer (1842-1911). [1]
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York. [2]
1912
Acquired by Walter Lewisohn (1880-1938), New York. [3]
From 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [4]
Notes:
[1] Notation from 1908 exhibition in Paris. Name also written on back label.
[2] Based on provenance research published in the Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 by Neil Jeffares.
[3] See Note 2.
[4] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Exhibition History1908
Exposition de Cent Pastels, Galeries Georges Petit
Paris, France (5/8/1908-6/10/1908), Cat. No. 10 (Incorrectly attributed to Francis Cotes)
Published ReferencesJeffares, Neil. Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800. (London: Unicorn Press, 2006).
Johnson, Edward Mead. Francis Cotes. Oxford, 1976, no. 297.
Carl WINTER, "Francis Cotes, R.A.", Connoisseur, LXXXVIII, IX.1931, pp. 177.
Status
Not on viewJuly 9, 1980
Object/Object
