John Flaxman, R.A. (York 1755-1826)

According to Dr Charles Burney the poet Samuel Rogers gave 'the best dinners to the best company of men of talents and genius' in London (P.W. Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries, 1889, I, p. 3). The present drawing records one such party on 10 June 1800. The event is also documented in a letter from the central figure in our drawing, Miss Sarah Rogers, to her nephew William Sharpe, a copy of which is in Sir John Soane's Museum, dated 23 February 1836. Sarah Rogers (1772-1855), the sister of the poet, was an amateur artist and friend of artists and writers including Turner and Wordsworth. Arm in arm with Sarah Rogers is Catherine Sharpe (b.1782), the daughter of the wealthy brewer Sutton Sharpe (d.1806) by his first wife. Sutton Sharpe married secondly, in 1795, Maria Rogers, sister of Sarah and Samuel Rogers. The seated older woman in our drawing, named as 'Mrs Sharpe' is presumably the mother of Sutton Sharpe, or perhaps a sister-in-law; she is certainly not Maria, Mrs Sutton Sharpe, who is depicted in another study made by Flaxman at the same party (Bindman, op.cit., no. 65c, p. 59).