One of our most intriguing sales relates to a Coalport shell dish painted with a view of the old Blackfriars Bridge over the River Thames. In the background, are St Paul’s Cathedral and the spires of other London churches. The title is painted in handscript on the back, and underneath it is the name of the painter, Maryanne Bloxam, and the date 1825.

The dish was bought from us by Darryl Johnston in Australia. Darryl is the great-great-great nephew of Maryanne Bloxam, whose portrait by the celebrated society painter Sir Thomas Lawrence now hangs in the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth,Texas, together with that of her husband, Frederick Hemming. (Click here and here to see online images from the museum’s collection.)

The family history has several fascinating strands.
Maryanne was born in London in 1807, the daughter of Rev. Richard Rouse Bloxam, assistant master at Rugby School and a Doctor of Divinity. She became one of only a very few female porcelain painters at the time who were sufficiently esteemed to sign her own work. Her mother Anne Bloxom was the sister of self-taught artist Thomas Lawrence.
Lawrence came to London at rhe age of 18 and received his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1790. Two years later, after the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he was appointed Painter in Ordinary to King George III. ‘Drawing inspiration from Reynolds’s style, with its allusions to the old masters, Lawrence dominated society portraiture in England’ (Kimberly Art Museum). He was knighted in 1815 and appointed president of the Royal Academy in 1820.
In 1825, Maryanne married Frederick Herbert Hemming, former British concul-general to Venezuela. Darryl has traced the Hemming family back to John Heminge, an actor and theatrical manager who was closely associated with William Shakespeare throughout the Bard’s life (click here for a Britannica entry).
Knighted in 1815, Lawrence was appointed president of the Royal Academy in 1820.
This last honour fuelled a desire to own Giovanni Cipriani’s original 1769 design for the headpiece of the Royal Academy diploma (see here). Cipriani’s drawing belonged to Richard Baker, who offered to give it to Lawrence in exchange for painting a portrait of his great-nephew, Frederick Hemming. Sititngs were still underway when Baker died and Hemming inherited his collection. ‘Lawrence also coveted Baker’s drawings by Raphael and offered Hemming a companion portrait of his fiancée, Mary Anne Bloxam, in exchange for them. Bloxam was reputedly an accomplished porcelain painter, and in her portrait holds a brush as if busy at work; she is depicted in a modish white Grecian dress,’ note the Kimbery Museum curators.
This is the second occasion one of our antiques has been acquired by a family descendent of its co-creator. We identified a set of six champlevé gilt spoons by the celebrated Norwegian goldsmith designer Gustav Gaudernack from examples in Norway’s National Museum. They were bought from us by a member of the Gaudernack family.