Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14136

    Portrait of Angela Burdett-Coutts

    Date
    1868
    Sitter
    Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts (1814 - 1906, British) , Philanthropist
    Creator
    Peter Paul Skeolan (1815 - 1871, British) , Photographer
    Object type
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 95mm
    width (print): 57 mm
    height (card support): 105 mm
    width (card support): 62mm
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > dog
    Description
    Portrait of Angela Burdett-Coutts, seating right as viewed and looking into the camera. Taken in Peter Paul Skeolan’s studio in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

    Burdett-Coutts wears a dress, high at the neck with low set sloping shoulders and a tiered skirt. Her hair is pulled back in a low bun. Her right hand sits in her lap, while her left pets a small dog, its head buried into the chair below. An ornate plant stand is visible on the left and a marble column is visible on the right.

    Forward facing inscription: ‘P. P SKEOLAN REGISTED BY P. P. SKEOLAN HARROGATE’
    Verso inscription: ‘Miss Burdett Coutts
    MINIATURE PAINTER
    P. P. SKEOLAN
    HARROGATE
    J. HADDOCK Bookseller &c Ipswich’

    Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906) philanthropist was heiress of the fortune of her grandfather, Thomas Coutts. She donated large sums of her fortune to philanthropic causes, particularly to redevelopment work in East London. She was also a patron of the sciences, funding the research of many former Fellows of the Royal Society. Most notably, she funded geologist William Pengelly’s formative research into the lignite of Bovey Tracey, culminating in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1862 (Vol. 152, ‘The Lignites and Clays of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire’) and Pengelly’s election to the Fellowship of the Society a year later.

    Peter Paul Skeolan (1815-1871) miniaturist and photographer.
    Object history
    Purchased by the Royal Society, 2019.
    Related fellows
    William Pengelly (1812 - 1894, British)
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