Portrait with Preparatory Sketch

This interesting portrait features a Regency lady in a garden setting, her arm resting on the base of a rose-entwined stone column. She is wearing a blue empire-line dress edged with lace with a white tucker fill-in. She has hooped pearl earrings and a pearl necklace; her dark hair has been curled and swept up.

What makes this portrait particularly interesting is that, in addition to being signed – J. W. Childe / 1817 – in the bottom left corner, is that it also has a preparatory pencil sketch of the same lady on the reverse side together with a fuller signature – J.W. Childe Pinxt / 1817 / 125 Strand / London.

The portrait is painted in watercolour on card and is presented in a decorative giltwood frame that is also glazed on the reverse to reveal the sketch with the inked signature.

Working during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, James Warren Childe was primarily known for his portraits of London actors and actresses.