91.05 Portrait of Hermione with her pet
Richard Buckner was a well-known Victorian portrait painter who lived and worked in Cleveland Row, London, having trained in Rome with Giovanni Battista Cassevari. He exhibited 77 paintings at the Royal Academy between 1842 and 1877, and his works are now displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, at the British Museum, at the British Army Museum, Windsor Castle and other museums and historic houses. He kept meticulous records, and between 1840 and his death, he received 989 commissions, including from Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and other members of the Royal Family.
Hermoine Wilhelmina Duncombe, 7th child of the 1st Earl of Feversham was born in 1864.
She married the Irish peer Gerald Fitzgerald, the 5th Duke of Leinster in 1884 and took the title Duchess of Leinster They had 3 children and she tragically died of tuberculosis in 1895 at the age of 30.
We bought this picture from Rob Mynott at Apollo Antiques, The Saltisford, Warwick in early 1991. He had bought it at auction at Sotherby’s in London the previous year. It shows Hermoine before her marriage, a rebellious- looking young lady, with wild tousled hair and bare feet against a stormy landscape. She is dressed like a gypsy and holding a tambourine in one hand and her pet King Charles spaniel in the other. Not a typical portrait of a refined Victorian lady!
