Gathering Flowers

Drawn in pencil and heightened with watercolour, this most charming portrait depicts a young girl in an expansive garden landscape. She wears a high-waisted dress with pretty pink lacing on the bodice, and short sleeves with under-sleeves also trimmed with pink ribbon. Frilly pantaloons cover her ankles and she has dainty strapped slipper shoes. The portrait is signed bottom left and dated 1806.

The portrait is professionally double mounted and set in a later Regency style gilt wood reeded frame with decorative corner mouldings.

The eldest son of a London tradesman, Henry Edridge (1768-1821) was apprenticed to an engraver and, aged 15, entered the Royal Academy Schools. His London studio attracted the aristocracy as well as many artists and poets and he was regularly invited to weekend parties at country houses where he would often draw portraits of his host’s family.