Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> By the 1780s – she was as old as the century Mrs Delany had become something of a legend. She embodied for her con- temporaries particularly the younger set. virtues which were admired as characteristic of the passing age of enlightenment: propriety style and wit. She was also widely loved for her goodness of heart a virtue perhaps less commonly found in combination with the others. The much younger Fanny Burney wrote of her as one of the Old Wits’ in whom taste and discrimination excelled. An equally devoted admirer Hangah More enjoyed not only her ‘excellent mind’ but also found in her a living library of knowledge for she had known many of the greatest men and women of her time and had personal experience of many of its historical events. The range of her interests and social contacts was very wide. She was the friend of Handel corresponded wittily with Swift was the niece of Lord Lansdowne poet and patron of Pope knew Burke was wooed by John Wesley entertained and was entertained by Garrick and saw much of Lord Chesterfield in Ireland. Her close friendship with the Duchess of Portland brought her in contact with some of the greatest botanists horticulturalists and botanical artists of the time Sir Joseph Banks Solander Lightfoot Fothergill Philip Miller and Ehret among others. Her contacts with the world of art were as strong as with that of music. She knew Hogarth and may have had drawing lessons from him as she had lessons in painting from Goupy. Sir Joshua Reynolds praised her flower collages or ‘paper-mosaicks’. Opie and Barber painted her portrait and Sir Thomas Lawrence drew her in old age. Horace Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting first published her “new form of art. King George m and Queen Charlotte who also became deeply interested in her ‘mosaicks’ were on terms of intimate