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Notes
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A half-length portrait slightly to right in a painted oval with a plain background. She wears a black velvet saque, or dress, open at the sleeves and front to reveal a low-cut pink silk under-dress. The slashed sleeves reveal the white cambric chemise underneath and with lace cuffs and edging to the bodice. The sleeves of the saque are gathered at the elbows with large pink-silk bows and there is another at the top of the bodice. Below this is a loop of pearls and she wears earrings of single pear-shaped pearls. The sitter was Elizabeth Cooke (sometimes Cook), eldest child and daughter – of three, and two brothers – of John and Elizabeth Cooke of Winchester, Hants. She was born on 21st March 1725 and married Captain Justinian Nutt at Wickham, Hants, on 10th August 1749 when her fortune was reported by the 'Gentleman's Magazine' to have been £10,000.
She remarried on 2nd June 1761 – being referred to in both the 'Public Ledger' and 'Lloyd's Evening Post' of the 3rd as 'a widow lady of a considerable fortune' – to Lieutenant Charles Besson, one of the lieutenants of the Hospital, of whom there is also a miniature by Nathaniel Hone in the collection (MNT0120). This is also dated 1761 so may itself be another marriage item. Besson had lost a leg about 1759 and spent the rest of his long life at Greenwich, dying in 1822.
Elizabeth died on 11th October 1797 but Besson remained in contact with members of the Nutt family. His will and its codicil (1811 and 1819) appointed the Nutts' surviving son, George Anson Nutt, as his executor and residuary legatee and left small bequests to his wife and children 'as a mark of my affectionate regard for them'.
The two Nutt portraits are one of few such pairs in the Museum collection. Many were of course painted but time and sale have often split them up, with the husband remaining known for historical reasons and the wife, or at least her identity, often lost sight of in sale titles like 'Portrait of an unknown lady'. The Museum acquired this pair in 1971. The artist has so far defied identification but Mrs Nutt's portrait in particular suggests the compositional influence of Allan Ramsay with the dress perhaps by Joseph van Aken the younger.
Title
Mrs Justinian Nutt, née Elizabeth Cooke (1725–1797)
Date
1750s
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 76.2 x W 63.5 cm
Accession number
BHC2916
Acquisition method
purchased, 1971
Work type
Painting
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