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ATTRIBUTED TO MATTHEW WILLIAM PETERS RA (1741-1814)
Portrait of a Lady, standing beside the Medici Vase, in a landscape, a castle in the distance
Oil on canvas, 220 x 148cm
Matthew William Peters RA (1741-1814) was born at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, the son of Matthew Peters and his
wife, a daughter of George Young of Dublin. There is an alternative view that suggests that he was born in his fa-
ther’s house at Capel Street in Dublin. In any event he was recorded as entering Robert West’s drawing school at an
early age. Such was his skill that he was awarded prizes in 1756 and 1758, and was sent by the Dublin Society to Italy
to study with an allowance of thirty pounds. He studied under Pompeo Batoni at Florence and was made a member
of the Florentine Academy in 1763. After a less than satisfactory stint in Dublin, he went to London and sent three
works to the Society of Artists : ‘A Florentine Lady in a Tuscan Dress’, ‘A Lady in a Pisan Dress’ and a ‘Portrait of a
Young Gentleman.” In 1769 he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy with ‘Portrait of the Duchess of Ancaster.’ He
continued to exhibit there, sending works from Italy in the early 1770’s. Even while studying for the priesthood at
Exeter College, Oxford and becoming a rector at Eaton, Leicestershire and a little later chaplain to the Prince Regent
he continued to paint but exhibited more sporadically. He was patronized by the Dukes of Manchester and Rutland,
and painted for the latter in 1782 a copy of Le Brun’s portrait of “Madame de la Valliére” in the Carmelite church in
Paris.
Not a great deal is known about this present work, which has been in an Irish country house collection for many
decades. The sitter is unknown but the style of dress suggests the early years of the 1780s and it is conceivable that
she is British or indeed Irish. The work is typical of Grand Tour portraiture with the subject shown standing beside
the monumental Medici Vase in an extensive landscape. A distant grand house set in a pastoral landscape suggests
a western/northern European patron.The sitter is fashionably dressed in a long silk layered gown with a lace collar
and bodice and displays the marked influence Marie Antoinette had on the fashion of the day.
The Medici Vase featured in very many paintings over several centuries but the transfer of the vase from Rome to
its current home in Florence in 1780 caused it to become quite the prop for the fashionable portraits of the last
decades of the 18th century. Standing at almost five feet tall, the Medici Vase, a monumental marble bell shaped
krater was sculpted in Athens in the 2nd half of the 1st century AD as a garden ornament for the Roman market.
It is carved with a mythological bas-relief frieze depicting heroic warriors standing either side of Iphigenia who is
seated below a statue of a goddess. The vase is mentioned in the 1598 inventory of the Medici Villa in Rome but it is
not known when and how it arrived there. It is depicted in many neo-classical paintings, such as the present work.
Amongst the best known is the 2nd Lord Berwick on his Grand Tour seated beside the vase painted by Angelica
Kaufmann.
€ 10,000 - 15,000