Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen Consort of King William IV (1792-1849)

Location

Country: Falkland Islands
City: Port Stanley
Place: Governor's Residence

Sir William Beechey was born in Burford, Oxfordshire. After his father’s death (1789) he was raised by his uncle and initially apprenticed to a firm of solicitors. In 1772 he moved to London to enter the Royal Academy Schools. He soon married and his children include painter and explorer Henry William. From c.1782 he worked in Norwich, returning to London in 1787. Beechey was a widow by 1793, when he married miniature painter Anne Phyllis Jessop. In 1794 he became a member of the Royal Academy, received a knighthood and exhibited ‘His Majesty Reviewing the Third Dragoon Guards’, his most celebrated work. He was named portrait painter to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Principle Portrait Painter to William IV before his death aged 85.
Samuel William Reynolds was a painter and engraver. Despite publishing his first prints in the mid-1790s, he found himself in debt by 1800 and came to rely upon the financial help of Samuel Whitbread MP. It was under Whitbread’s patronage that Reynolds was able to broaden his interests to include painting, architecture and landscape design. He exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy and British Institution and was also a collector; owning a group of drawings by Thomas Girtin. In 1809 he visited France for the first time and he went on to exhibit engravings at the Paris Salon in 1810 and 1812. Reynolds also worked in Paris on occasion, where he found a market for his paintings of landscapes and cottage scenes.

People

Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (1792 - 1849)

Places

Subjects

female portrait, royal portrait, bouquet, 19th century costume, dress, plant pot, coat of arms, Queen Consort, balcony, curtain

Materials & Techniques

mezzotint

Artist

Sir William Beechey (1753 - 1839)
Samuel William Reynolds (1773 - 1835)

Title

Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen Consort of King William IV (1792-1849)

Date

published 1831

Medium

Mezzotint

Acquisition

Origin uncertain; before 1935

GAC number

0/818