CHRISTOPHER HEWETSON (1737-1799), ROME, CIRCA 1767-9

The sitter, Catherine Annesley, daughter of William, 1st Viscount Glerawly, married Arthur Gore, Viscount Sudley, in 1760. The couple embarked on a Grand Tour in Italy together from 1767, and Horace Walpole noted that Gore had been invited to dinner by Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor in Florence that year. By 1769 they had reached Rome, where they commissioned Batoni to paint their joint portrait (Christie's, London, 5 July 2018, lot 55). The portrait bust by Hewetson must have been executed between 1767 and 1769, and is therefore Hewetson's earliest known work in Italy.