Bygone Beauties. From Paintings by John Hoppner, R.A.
Engraved by Charles Wilkin. Annotated by Andrew W. Tuer. (Field and Tuer.)—" When Hoppner died," Mr. Tuer tells us, "Lawrence immediately raised his prices from eighty to one hundred guineas for heads, and from three hundred and twenty to four hundred guineas for full lengths." Hoppner had, indeed, divided the world of fashion with Lawrence, and was, perhaps, but little inferior to him as an artist. In this volume we have a repro- duction of a "Select Series of Ten Portraits of Ladies of Rank and Fashion." There is not much individuality about them, but they form a pretty series of pictures. The finest of the ten, perhaps, is "Lady Catharine Howard, only daughter of the fifteenth Earl of Suffolk." She was afterwards the wife of the Rev. George Bisset, vicar of Westport St. Mary, Malmesbury. Of the others may be mentioned, "The Duchess of Rutland," the mother of the present Duke ; and " Viscountess Andover," afterwards Lady Digby, who died as recently as 1863. (The portrait was painted in 1799.) Her father was the famous "Coke {of Holkham" (born in 1754), father of the present Earl of Leicester.
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