ladies."[1] If he flattered, he knew how to do it, and the result is always pleasing. "He could not have worked at more lovely subjects," says Count Anthony Hamilton; "each portrait is a masterpiece."
All the ladies—there were eleven originally, of whom nine or ten now remain here—are painted in three-quarter length, in "trailing fringes and embroidery through meadows and purling streams." Others, such as Mrs. Knott, a pretty, quiet lady, and Mrs. Lawson, by Wissing, and the most lovely little girl—whom we may not now call the Princess Mary, but who is identified as Miss Jane Kelleway, a charming child-Diana—do not belong to the series. There is also the portrait of Anne Hyde herself, who ordered the painter to immortalise the Beauties—a comely, pleasant lady enough, "her whole body sitting in state in a chair in white satin," as Pepys says; and there is the lovely Lady Bellasys (if she it be) as S. Catherine, devout and rapt, who is not one of the Beauties. The Duchess of Portsmouth—Louise de Querouaille—by Varelst, much spoilt by repainting, is a pretty picture of the "childish,simple baby face."
The "Beauties" themselves were removed from Windsor Castle, during the reign of George III., to Hampton Court, where they fitly remain.
The first is Miss Stewart, the Britannia of the coinage. Bow in hand, dressed in a light yellow satin, with face, arms, and head uncovered (like all the Beauties), she is a charming picture. She long resisted all the attrac-
- ↑ "The English School of Painting," p.xxxv.
