Click image to view full size with zoom
Francis Cotes R.A.
1744-1834
Joyce Crowther, Lady Lake as Diana
Circa 1767
Oil on canvas
49.6 x 39.75 ins, 126 x 101 cm
About the Sitter
Joyce Crowther was the daughter of John Crowther of Bow, owner of the Bow china factory. There is a pun in the bow she is holding.
In 1764 aged 20 Joyce married Sir James Winter Lake, 3rd baronet (1741-1807) of The Firs, Edmonton. She died on 25 July 1834, aged 90, at Boulogne sur Mer.
Sir James was the eldest son of Sir Atwell Lake and Mary, the daughter of James Winter of Mile End. Sir James was admitted to Trinity College Cambridge on 2 June 1760 where he studied classical languages. Cultured and with a lifelong interest in the arts he became a passionate collector, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He was able to do this because of his great wealth derived from his succession of positions with the Hudson’s Bay Company: as a member of the Committee (1761-82), then as Deputy Governor (1782-99) and finally as Governor (1799-1807).
About the Artist
Francis Cotes had been apprenticed to George Knapton from about 1741 to 1747. He worked in pastels and crayon into the 1750s. His first recorded portrait in oils was in 1753.
He exhibited at The Society of Artists from 1760 and was much influenced by Reynolds although Cotes’ likenesses were more informal and intimate. As one of the most fashionable and sought after portrait painters in London, he became a founder member of The Royal Academy in 1768.
About this Work
This portrait was not painted earlier than 1764 (the year of Joyce’s marriage when she was 20) and probably dates from slightly later, based on the sitter’s apparent age and on comparison with other portraits by Cotes at around this time. The portrait most likely dates to 1767, when Cotes painted similar works including Thomas Crathorne and his wife Isabel.
The Diana imagery in this portrait has significant similarities to Reynolds, particularly through the work of the drapery painter Peter Toms (1726-1777), who worked for Reynolds from c. 1755 to the early 1760s and then intensively for Cotes from 1763 or 1764.
Further Information
Provenance
- Commissioned by Sir James Winter Lake who died in 1807
- The dowager Lady Lake, the sitter, until her death in 1834
- By descent in the Lake family until sold in 2018
Literature
J. T. Smith, Nollekins and his Times and Memoirs of Contemporary Artists vol.1 page 161.