A Lady of the Petre Family playing the guitar

manner of Joseph Carl Stieler (Mainz 1781 – Munich 1858). Oil painting on canvas, A Lady of the Petre Family playing the guitar, by or in the manner of Joseph Carl Stieler (Mainz 1781 – Munich 1858), 1820. A seated, three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman, who is turned towards the right and looks out at the spectator. She wears a mid-blue Empire-line dress with capped sleeves and holds a mandolin across her lap as if playing. There is a necklace with multi-coloured stones around her neck, gold droppers in her ears and an elaborate gold jewel in her hair above her forehead. Her hair is fastened high at the back and there are finger curls around her face. A red curtain behind her is swept back at bottom right to reveal an alpine landscape of distant mountains. In 1996, Mr Ferrers-Walker suggested that the sitter was aunt to Beatrice Petre who married Henry Ferrers Croxon in 1879. Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (Accredited Museum)