Lady Charlotte Hobhouse (née Cam)

The son of an Edinburgh glove maker, John Donaldson was a painter, poet and inventor. He first rose to fame in 1756, while still a teenager, when he won a prize for drawing from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Sciences, Manufactures and Agriculture in Edinburgh. Donaldson was the protégé of the engraver Richard Cooper, although his earliest known works are drawings after works by Albrecht Dürer and Wenceslaus Hollar.

In about 1760 Donaldson moved to London and began exhibiting regularly. He became a member of the Society of Artists in 1764. Donaldson primarily painted portrait miniatures in watercolour on ivory, as well as painting enamels. Throughout his career he would occasionally produce pictures derived from literature or mythology. Donaldson’s ambitions as an artist are reflected in his publication of several volumes titled ‘Elements of Beauty: also Reflections on the Harmony of Sensibility and Reason’ (1780, 1786); however, his career appears to have been hampered by what at the time were described as radical ‘socialistic’ views.

Donaldson’s portraits of women, like this one of Charlotte Hobhouse, are particularly decorative. The features and elaborately curled hair, which is dressed with pears, are finely painted with delicate stipple and hatching. Donaldson’s use of pink for the flesh tones with blue shading, especially noticeable around the eyes of Lady Hobhouse, can make his sitters appear rather heavily made up.

Relatively little is known of Lady Hobhouse. She was the daughter of Samuel Cam M.P. of Chantry House, Bradford, Wiltshire. In 1785 she married the barrister Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, whose family were Bristol-based merchants and slave traders. Her son John was a writer and confidant of the Romantic poet Lord Byron.