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拍品专文
Admired for her poise and beauty, twenty-three year old Susannah Bosanquet married James Whatman (1741-1798) in 1776. The Huguenot Bosanquets had come to England in 1686 from Lunel in Languedoc and Susannah’s father, Jacob Bosanquet, had prospered as a Director of the East India Company before his death in 1767. James Whatman's father, James Whatman the Elder (1702-1759), began a paper mill in Kent that revolutionized the papermaking process in England. Whatman the Elder has been credited with developing wove paper, whose textured surface proved far superior for artists and printmakers than the existing laid paper. Whatman's wove paper was used to print John Baskerville's seminal edition of Virgil in 1757, which took three years to finish and pioneered Baskerville's invented typeface. This printing drew the attention and interest of Benjamin Franklin, who brought Whatman's novel invention to the American colonies and used it to print colonial currency in Philadelphia. James Whatman furthered his father's innovations of producing fine paper and the business's technology and methods for processing paper pulp are still used in mass production.
Susannah Whatman was James Whatman’s second wife, after his first wife Sarah (née Stanley) had died leaving him with two young daughters. By all accounts, his marriage to Susannah was a happy one, and in 1778 Whatman commissioned a portrait of his wife from George Romney. According to Romney's account books, Mrs. Whatman sat for the artist seventeen times between 1778 and 1782. In his catalogue raisonné on the artist, Alex Kidson comments that the last two sittings in 1782 were likely as a result of the fact that Mrs. Whatman’s looks had changed in the four years since the commission had begun (Kidson, loc cit.).
Susannah Whatman ran the household at Turkey Court, near Maidstone, and later at Vintners at Boxley in Kent; during the course of her life she wrote meticulous notes on how best to manage a household and preserve furniture, china, and the house in general. She turned the formidable instructions into a manuscript, which was passed down in her family until it was published in 1952 as Susanna Whatman, her housekeeping book, and later declared a National Trust Classic in 1987.
Susannah Whatman was James Whatman’s second wife, after his first wife Sarah (née Stanley) had died leaving him with two young daughters. By all accounts, his marriage to Susannah was a happy one, and in 1778 Whatman commissioned a portrait of his wife from George Romney. According to Romney's account books, Mrs. Whatman sat for the artist seventeen times between 1778 and 1782. In his catalogue raisonné on the artist, Alex Kidson comments that the last two sittings in 1782 were likely as a result of the fact that Mrs. Whatman’s looks had changed in the four years since the commission had begun (Kidson, loc cit.).
Susannah Whatman ran the household at Turkey Court, near Maidstone, and later at Vintners at Boxley in Kent; during the course of her life she wrote meticulous notes on how best to manage a household and preserve furniture, china, and the house in general. She turned the formidable instructions into a manuscript, which was passed down in her family until it was published in 1952 as Susanna Whatman, her housekeeping book, and later declared a National Trust Classic in 1987.