A Greek Captive

Catalogue entry

Henriette Browne 1829-1901

N01969 A Greek Captive 1863

Inscribed 'Henriette Browne 1863.' b.l.
Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 28 3/4 (92 x 73)
Bequeathed by Charles Fraser to the National Gallery 1868, with life interest to the Rev. Simon Fraser, d. 1905; transferred c.1920
Prov: Charles Fraser, London; Rev. Simon Fraser, Basingstoke, 1868 Lit: Magdalen Goffin, Maria Pasqua (Oxford-London-New York 1979), pp. 23, 155, repr. as frontispiece

The sitter, Maria Pasqua Abruzzesi (1856-1939), was the daughter of impoverished Italian peasants. Her father took her to Paris in 1862 where she had great success as a child model for such fashionable artists as Jalabert, Hébert and Bonnat, and where her exceptional beauty attracted the interest of the Comtesse de Noailles, who bought her from her father in 1865 and brought her up as her adopted daughter. She subsequently married Philip Shepheard, a Norfolk country gentleman.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.84-5, reproduced p.84

Read more