7 months ago
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Posted On: March 31st 2026, 07:34 am
Portrait of Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough.
Lady Caroline Lamb (1785–1828), “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago.” – Lord Byron.
This portrait of Caroline Lamb is an oil on canvas by the British artist Thomas Phillips, created in 1813. Known for her wild character and her writing, she is most famously remembered for her affair with Lord Byron.
Caro, as she was affectionately known, is shown dressed as a page boy, bearing a platter of fruit.
“What a prude I think Phillips,” Caro remarked of the artist. At the time, Phillips was a new and emerging portrait painter who had already painted the Prince of Wales.
Caro’s doting cousin, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, commissioned the painting and paid forty guineas for its completion on 2 May 1814.
The painting had a short public life, exhibited in Phillips’s studio next to a portrait of a robed Byron. The outcome, assumed by many, was that the portraits formed a single picture.
Caroline’s portrait is exhibited in this year’s exhibition at Chatsworth House. House of Stories: Tales from the Chatsworth Library, 2026.
#chatsworthart #Chatsworth #Devonshirecollection #carolinelamb #arthistory #thomasphillips #lordbyron #literature #chatsworthhouse #19thcentury
Lady Caroline Lamb (1785–1828), “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago.” – Lord Byron.
This portrait of Caroline Lamb is an oil on canvas by the British artist Thomas Phillips, created in 1813. Known for her wild character and her writing, she is most famously remembered for her affair with Lord Byron.
Caro, as she was affectionately known, is shown dressed as a page boy, bearing a platter of fruit.
“What a prude I think Phillips,” Caro remarked of the artist. At the time, Phillips was a new and emerging portrait painter who had already painted the Prince of Wales.
Caro’s doting cousin, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, commissioned the painting and paid forty guineas for its completion on 2 May 1814.
The painting had a short public life, exhibited in Phillips’s studio next to a portrait of a robed Byron. The outcome, assumed by many, was that the portraits formed a single picture.
Caroline’s portrait is exhibited in this year’s exhibition at Chatsworth House. House of Stories: Tales from the Chatsworth Library, 2026.
#chatsworthart #Chatsworth #Devonshirecollection #carolinelamb #arthistory #thomasphillips #lordbyron #literature #chatsworthhouse #19thcentury
Comments (3)
7 months agovictorylaurel
"I have always told you, and I tell you again, that you are the only one of the family who has the heart to feel, and the head to understand. You are not like the rest... do not let them guide you; it is you who must guide them." CL to Hart
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