Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces
1763–65
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
242.6 × 151.5 cm (95 1/2 × 59 3/4 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
4788
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Dressed in Classically inspired robes, Lady Sarah Bunbury pours a libation of oil as an offering to the Three Graces, positioned behind her. Her soon-to-be husband, Charles Bunbury, commissioned this marriage portrait, making her association with the Graces—symbols of fertility and attendants to the Roman goddess of love, Venus—all the more appropriate. The first president of the Royal Academy in London, Sir Joshua Reynolds urged his fellow artists to paint historical and edifying subjects base...
About the Artist
Sir Joshua Reynolds · 1723–1792
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) was a British painter who became the dominant figure in eighteenth-century British art and the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts. Born in Plympton, Devon, he studied under the portrait painter Thomas Hudson in London, and a transformative visit to Italy (1749–52) — where he studied the Old Masters, particularly the Venetian colorists and Michelangelo — sh...