Captain R.A. Frazer-Mackenzie, Netley Park, Gorris Hall, Surrey;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 1 July 1927, lot 12 (as "A Lady");
A.L. Nicholson, Esq., Llandaff House, Weybridge-on-Thames, Surrey;
By whom sold, New York, Anderson's Galleries, 18 May 1933, lot 24 (as "Miss Siddons");
Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York;
His sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 29-30 April 1960, lot 197;
There purchased by the family of the present owner.

Columbus, Ohio, The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Sir Thomas Lawrence as Painter and Collector, exhibition catalogue, 1955, no. 25.

K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, London 1954, p. 57;
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence: A complete catalogue of the oil paintings, Oxford 1989, p. 265, cat. no. 716a (as 'whereabouts unknown').

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has not been restored for many years. The canvas is lined but the lining is no longer consolidating the paint layer and there is instability in the background around the figure on both sides and to a lesser degree in the figure herself. There are no visible paint losses however, except for a couple of small chips in the center right. The painting is quite dirty with a yellowed varnish and a layer of airborne dirt, and although no retouches are visible under ultraviolet light because of this old varnish, it is apparent that no significant areas of restoration that have been applied. There is some thinness to the paint layer, luckily not in the face, but the arms and hands, and particularly the left hand, may have received a fair amount of restoration because of abrasion. There is thinness in the pink shawl yet none of this is unexpected in English portraiture from this period and although there is restoration to be done, the painting will respond very well.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The sitter, Sally Siddons, was the eldest daughter of Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), the most famous Shakespearian actress of the late eighteenth century. The mother not only sat to Lawrence, but also to Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose celebrated portrait Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse (The Huntington Library, San Marina, California) clearly inspired the sitter's pose in this painting.&nဣbsp;A number of drawings said to repre꧒sent Sally Siddons, including those in the Pierpont Morgan Library, Courtald Institute of Art, and The Huntington library, attest to the fact that she bore a marked resemblance to her more famous mother.

Both Sally Siddons and her sister, Maria Siddons (1779-1798), were scandalously involved in relationships with Lawrence. Although Sally was apparently engaged to Lawrence in 1797, the artist is believed to have temporarily shifted his affections towards the younger Maria, who on her death bed made her sister promise to never marry Lawrence. This erratic love triangle ended shortly thereafter, however, as both sisters died prematurely of consumption. Lawrence's romantic involvment with the Siddons sisters helped spark great interest during the early years of the twentieth century in the artist's personal life and, in 1904, Oswald Knapp published An Artist's Love Story, which documented the artist's relationship with Sally and Maria Siddons.¹

In his 1989 monograph (see literature), Kenneth Garlick notes that he knew of the present work only through a photograph, citing the concept as "acceptably Lawrentian", though stating that the picture must have been finished by anothe𒉰r hand. What seems plausible here is that essential parts of the composition, such as the head and initial figure sketch may have been completed by Lawrence, while parts of the drapery were worked up at a slightly later date.

1. M. Levey, Sir Thomas Lawrence, New Haven 2005, p. 308.