The Spotted Headdress

Although probably just in her early teens, this young lady already shows poise and elegance. She wears a low-cut dress in cornflower blue muslin sprigged in white and trimmed with matching white lace. Her upswept hair is secured with a pretty white and blue spotted headdress.

Dating to the mid-eighteenth century, the portrait is set in a gilt metal frame with a twisted border. The attractive reverse reveals lilac silk under a pair of pierced and engraved gilt metal birds on a nest.

Gervase Spencer’s career as a miniaturist apparently began whilst working as a footman in a London household during the 1740s. A talented draughtsman, he was self-taught and became a prolific artist working competently on ivory and in enamel. He exhibited at the Society of Artists. Spencer died at his home in Great Marlborough Street on 30 October 1763.

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