On view
Portrait of Sarah Harrop (Mrs. Bates) as a Muse,
1780–81
This portrait of the renowned English soprano Sarah Harrop depicts her in a setting that alludes to Mount Parnassus, home of the ancient muses. The lyre that she holds is an attribute of Erato, muse of lyric poetry, but her sheet music is more modern: it is an aria from George Frideric Handel’s opera Rodelinda, Queen of the Lombards (1725). Harrop was famous for her performances of Handel’s operas and oratorios; this picture dates from the time of her marriage to Joah Bates, who revived and promoted Handel’s works. The aria Harrop holds is sung not by her character, Rodelinda, but by her husband’s, Bertarido, suggesting that this may have been a marriage portrait.
Angelica Kauffmann was a founding member of Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts and one of the most celebrated painters of her time. Her portrayal of another professional woman in the arts suggests an exceptional sympathy between artist and sitter.
More Context
Handbook Entry
Angelica Kauffmann’s portrait of the renowned singer Sarah Harrop (Mrs. Bates), arguably the artist’s masterpiece in portraiture, is a rare representation of a self-made woman, the great Handelian performer Sarah Harrop (1755–1811), by one of the very few professional women artists of the period. Kauffmann, one of two female cofounders of Britain’s Royal Academy, shows Harrop seated in the wilderness, a lyre at her side and a rolled sheet of music in her hand. The mountain, Mount Parnassos, is the home of the Muses, and the waterfall issues from the Hippocrene spring. The lyre most likely identifies Erato, the Muse of lyric poetry, and while the instrument is based on ancient types, the sheet music grounds the portrait in the eighteenth century, for it is recognizably an aria from George Frideric Handel’s opera <em>Rodelinda, Queen of the Lombards</em> (1725). The picture, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781, dates from around the time of Harrop’s marriage in 1780, a marriage to which she brought a substantial personal fortune made through her talents as a performer. The music hints at a personal meaning. The aria "Dove sei, l’amato bene" is sung not by Rodelinda but by her husband, whose longing words must have been chosen specifically for their personal significance in what was almost certainly a marriage portrait. That Kauffmann the artist was also married at about this time, to a fellow artist of more pedestrian talents, Antonio Zucchi, only deepens its resonance.
More About This Object
Information
1780–81
Angerstein Collection; Marquis of Exeter, Burghley House Stamford; his sale Christie's 1888; sold for 378 BP to Sir John Donaldson; acquired shortly afterward by Ludwig Messel, Nymans House, Sussex (now National Trust); thence by descent from late 19th century to present; Ben Elwes Fine Art, London; 2010 purchase by Princeton University Art Museum.
- Gerard, Frances A.. Angelica Kauffmann: a biography, (London: Ward and Downey, 1893)., p. 206, 366, 442
- Lady Victoria Manners and Dr. G.C. Williamson, Angelica Kauffmann, R.A., her life and her works, (London: John Lane, 1924)., p. 204, note 1; p. 442
- Angela Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman: art and sensibility, (New Haven: London: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 2006)., p. 172-4 pl. 90
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 298
