Mrs. Pelham Feeding Her Chickens

Prints and Drawings

1775

William Dickinson (English, 1746-1823)
after Sir Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723-1792)

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.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: William Dickinson
Title: Mrs. Pelham Feeding Her Chickens
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1766–1823
Medium: Mezzotint on cream wove paper
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
Reference Number: 1938.198
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/27227/manifest.json

Chaloner Smith 59 I

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Artist

Title

Place

Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.