Siblings

This engaging pair of portraits have successfully stayed together for over two hundred years. Wearing matching dresses, the children are each depicted within classical garden settings. The older child, most likely a girl, is shown with an opened box of illustrated cards that may be intended to indicate that she can already read. The romanticised background shows a Neoclassical garden folly with hills, trees and colourful summer flowers.

The younger sibling, a boy perhaps, is shown holding some cherries (or red berries) and is standing in a more wintry and rocky landscape with silver birches and blue-hued foliage with a glimpse of a stream.

Both portraits are in fine condition and are set in the original matching ormolu frames. The outside edge of one ivory (the younger child) is visible within its frame but does not distract from the overall beauty of the painting.