Lady Randolph Portrait

DateCirca 1897

Mediumwhale ivory

Dimensions3 1/8 × 6 1/2 in. (7.9 × 16.5 cm)

Object number00.195.38

Institutional Credit LineCourtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum

DescriptionMonochrome, mixed stipple and line engraved, one side only. A woman seated with a small child in swaddling clothes on her lap, and the standing figure of a girl alongside; inscribed below "LADY RAND[ ] [Lady Randolph] DAUGHTER IN LAW OF LORD DUFFERIN". Verso: polished, undecorated.

Lady Randolph, possibly wearing the exotic imperial headgear and costume in which she was famously photographed at the Devonshire House Ball, London, 2 July 1897: "...under-dress of Eastern fabric, cream worked in squares of green and gold, and draperies from the neck of green and mauve" (The Gentlewoman, 8 January 1898, p 59a). She was a socialite, magazine editor, and journalist, the second daughter of Leonard Jerome, financier, of New York; married (1874) Lord Randolph Churchill, statesman; married (1900) Captain George Cornwallis-West (divorced 1913); married (1918) Montague Phippen Porch, colonial administrator.

Costume references: The Chicago Tribune, 3 July 1897, p 3a & b; The New York World, 3 July 1897, p 7a; Vanity Fair, 8 July 1897, p 27b; Lady's Pictorial, 10 July 1897, p 50b (sketch); See also The Gentlewoman, 8 January 1898, p 59a . Reproduced references: The Daily Graphic, 15 May 1911, p 6; The Lady's Pictorial, 27 May 1911, p 902; (Versions) Devonshire House Fancy Dress Ball, July 2 1897: A Collection of Portraits in Costume of Some of the Guests, privately printed, 1899, p 203.

On View

Not on view