Portrait Of Mrs Louisa Hartley Tooth (née Beningfield) Of West Hampstead, Dated 1897

Portrait Of Mrs Louisa Hartley Tooth (nee Beningfield) Of West Hampstead, dated 1897

Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1897, no.422

by John Seymour Lucas (1849-1923)

Huge 19th Century three quarter length portrait of Mrs Louise Hartley Tooth, oil on canvas by John Seymour Lucas. Beautiful portrait and period piece of Mrs Tooth in full summer attire, wide brim hat, standing before an open glade, leaning on a stone plinth holding a rose. Presented in its original antique gilt frame. Signed dated and inscribed fully verso. Would significantly improve with just a light surface clean.



Measurements: 70" x 53" framed approx


notes: The sitter, Louisa Hartley Tooth (1859-1903), neé Beningfield, was the great-grandmother of the previous owner. The portrait was commissioned by her husband Arthur Tooth (1828-1900). A photograph of Louisa with her four children, taken just a few years after the completion of the present work, is held at London's National Portrait Gallery [NPG x76187].




ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
British, 19th – 20th century, male.
Born 21 December 1849, in London; died 8 May 1923, in London.
Painter, watercolourist. History painting, portraits, genre scenes.

John Seymour Lucas trained as a sculptor before devoting himself to painting as a pupil of his father, the portraitist John Lucas. His work covered a range of subject matter, from family and genre scenes to military subjects. He travelled to Spain in order to study the techniques of the Spanish painters. In London, he exhibited regularly with the Royal Academy from 1871, and became an academician in 1898. 

Museum and Gallery Holdings
Birmingham: Lancelot Kennedy reading the Gospels to Sir Thomas Kennedy

Leicester: The Whip for Van Tromp

London (Nat. Portrait Gal.): Self-portrait (1887, pencil); Richard Everard Webster, Viscount Alverstone (1902, chalk)

London (Royal Academy of Art): News from the Front (1898, oil on canvas)

London (Tate Collection): After Culloden, Rebel Hunting (1884, oil on canvas)

Sydney: The Gordon Riot; The Invincible Armada

Wolverhampton (AG and Mus.): Down to the Dregs (1880, oil on canvas); Flight of Five Members(1914, oil on canvas)