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View at the museum ↗Mrs. Pelham Feeding Her Chickens
William Dickinson1775
- Attribution
- William Dickinson (English, 1746-1823) after Sir Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723-1792)
- Medium
- Mezzotint on cream wove paper
- Physical dimensions
- Image: 62 × 38.2 cm (24 7/16 × 15 1/16 in.); Plate: 62.1 × 38.5 cm (24 1/2 × 15 3/16 in.); Sheet: 65.5 × 42.5 cm (25 13/16 × 16 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
Printed after a 1770 Joshua Reynolds painting, this mezzotint features the 1st Baroness of Yarborough, Mrs. Sophia Pelham. Mrs. Pelham wears a workingclass–inspired yet finely embroidered Brunswick dress to feed her chickens before a rustic farmhouse. Such scenes are reminiscent of the 18th-century British fashion for ornamental farms and dairies within elite society, similar to Marie Antoinette’s 1783 Hamlet at Versailles, with its imported Swiss sheep and cows. In fact, Mrs. Pelham had her own ornamental dairy, built in 1779 and outfitted entirely in Wedgwood Queen’s Ware dishes and equipment.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0