Sir William Boxall (1800-1879)
Portrait of Rotha Quillinan, bust-length, 1832 oil on panel
painting
(oil painting) 170 x 125 mm
This portrait shows Rotha Quillinan age approximately nine years old. Rotha Quillinan was the second daughter of William Wordsworth’s son-in-law Edward Quillinan from his first marriage to Jemima Brydges. She was born at Rydal in 1822 and Wordsworth was her godfather. Wordsworth suggested her unusual name, Rotha, naming her after the River Rothay that runs through Grasmere and Rydal on to Ambleside.
Dora Wordsworth, the poet’s daughter, eventually married Edward Quillinan in 1841. Dora was close to Rotha and her sister and the inscription on the back of this portrait states that it was given to her as a gift from Quillinan.
Provenance: Gift of the Higginbotham Woods family, 1999
Exhibited: Treasures of the Worsdworth Trust, The Wordsworth Trust, 2001-3 |
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Reference 2001.85.2.1
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