Thomas Hickey 1741-1824

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Portrait of the Honourable Diana Walpole, née Grosset aged 27

Oil on canvas, 84.5 x 69 cm.
Signed, titled and dated ‘Lisbona 1781’ on label verso (illustrated below)
Inscribed on the original frame with the sitter’s name

Provenance: By descent in the Walpole family

Behind this ravishing portrait of the famously beautiful Diana Walpole lies a story of misadventure, love and tragedy. Thomas Hickey was one of the first pupils of the Dublin Society Drawing School and subsequently spent some five years in Rome and also visited Naples. He advertised his return to Dublin (‘from the pursuit of his studies in the art of painting’) in May 1767 and in the next year started exhibiting at the Society of Artists. Hickey also received public commissions in these years, including for a portrait of the Marquess of Townshend (1769, Mansion House Dublin). In 1771 he left for London, where he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools and submitted to its exhibitions. In July 1780 of that year Hickey departed from Portsmouth for India. However, his ship was captured by the Spanish fleet and he was taken to Cadiz, whence he departed for Lisbon – the capital of a British ally – and settled for a period. It was here the following year that he painted the young Diana Walpole.

The sitter had been born Diana Grosset, the daughter of the Lisbon-based merchant, Walter Grosset. Known as a great beauty, on 8th May 1780 she married, very advantageously, the Hon. Robert Walpole who was serving as ambassador to the court of Lisbon. Robert was the fourth son of Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton, and nephew of Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford and Britain’s first Prime Minister. The painting is dated 1781, thus painted not long after the marriage and Hickey’s arrival. Sadly, Diana died three years later, in July 1784 aged only thirty years old and, indicating the love she had inspired, an enamel and hairwork memorial ‘swivel’ ring commemorating her death survives in a private collection (fig. 1).

Diana is shown here in the guise of Hebe, the Greek goddess of youth. According to legend, Hebe was the daughter of Zeus and Hera and married Hercules after his ascent to Olympus. As cupbearer of the gods, Hebe was characterised by the attributes associated with this role; here a gold wine pitcher (or oinochoe) inscribed ‘nectar’ (in Greek) and a gold platter inscribed ‘Hebe’. Accompanying her are the eagle and thunderbolt of her father Zeus. In eighteenth-century portraiture it became popular to depict female sitters by depicting them as Hebe with her flattering associations of youth and beauty. Hugh Douglas Hamilton was to use the same iconography in his portrait of the Countess of Aldborough, as was Sir Joshua Reynolds on several occasions. The iconography also imparts drama and movement to the composition which is painted with remarkable verve and freedom.

Hickey met with considerable success in Lisbon, from his studio on the ground floor of Mrs William’s hotel and stayed until later 1783 after which he departed – this time successfully – for a lengthy sojourn in India.