Pamela

Details

PHILIP MERCIER (BERLIN 1689/91-1760 LONDON)
Pamela
oil on canvas, unlined, unframed
39 3/4 x 55 1/2 in. (101 x 141 cm.)

Provenance

Probably commissioned when the artist was working in Ireland, 1746/7, and by family descent until,
[Property of a Gentleman]; Christie's, London, 14 July 1989, lot 72, where acquired by the present owner.

Special Notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This painting depicts a scene from the epistolary novel, Pamela, by Samuel Richardson (1740). A best-seller in its day, and now widely recognized for its significance in the development of the English novel, artists including Francis Hayman and Joseph Higmore took up the plot as a subject for narrative painting. Philip Mercier is known to have painted the theme on at least two other occasions (see J. Ingamells and R. Raines, ‘A Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings and Etchings of Philip Mercier’, The Walpole Society, XLVI, 1978, p. 45, nos. 174 and 175).

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