Ann Mary Newton (née Severn; 29 June 1832 – 2 January 1866) was an English painter. She specialized in portraits of children and worked in crayon, chalk, pastel and watercolour. Newton studied in England under George Richmond and in Paris under

Ary Scheffer Ary Scheffer (10 February 179515 June 1858) was a Dutch-French Romantic painter. He was known mostly for his works based on literature, with paintings based on the works of Dante, Goethe, Lord Byron and Walter Scott, Macmillan, Duncan (2023), ' ...

. Her works were exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art between 1852 and 1865.

Biography

Ann Mary Newton was born in Rome, where her father

Joseph Severn Joseph Severn (7 December 1793 – 3 August 1879) was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the English poet John Keats. He exhibited portraits, Italian genre, literary and biblical subjects, and a selection of ...

was the British Consul. Joseph Severn was an artist and a friend of the poet

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

. Newton was taught to draw by her father, and then on the Severn family's return to England in 1841, studied with George Richmond, who employed her to produce copies of portraits he had painted. In 1857 she received lessons from

in Paris. In Paris she painted a portrait of Mary Bruce, Countess of Elgin which was well reviewed and led to further society commissions in Britain. She specialised in portraits of children and worked in crayon, chalk, pastel and watercolour. In the mid-1850s she supported her family with a number of commissions, travelling to the homes of wealthy patrons. Her first picture to be exhibited at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

was ''The Twins'' in 1852, a portrait of her younger brother and sister. During this time she also painted portraits of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

's nephew and children. In 1861 she married the archaeologist

Charles Thomas Newton Sir Charles Thomas Newton (16 September 1816 – 28 November 1894) was a British archaeologist. He was made KCB in 1887. Life He was born in 1816, the second son of Newton Dickinson Hand Newton, vicar of Clungunford, Shropshire, and afte ...

, who became Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. She made drawings of Greek sculpture for his public lectures and also designed illustrations for his ''History of the Discoveries at Helicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae'' (2 vols, 1862–63) and ''Travels and Discoveries in the Levant'' (2 vols, 1865). A number of her sketchbooks, which make up an important picture-diary of her travels in the eastern Mediterranean and contain witty caricatures of the family, are in the possession of Severn descendants. In the 1860s she began to work in oils and exhibited a number of pictures in the Royal Academy exhibitions, most notably a self-portrait (

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

) and an

Arthurian According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a leader of the post-Ro ...

subject from

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...

, ''Elaine'' (exhibited in 1863). She died of measles in 1866 at her home, 74 Gower Street,

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

. at the age of thirty-three, having had no children. Queen Victoria mentions her tragic early death in her Journal of 7 January 1866: "Greatly shocked at the death of Mrs Newton, (Miss Severn) a pretty, clever young artist, who painted several of the family & did also beautiful copies of the Old Masters". Her work is included in the collections of the

and the Tate Gallery, London.

References

Sources

* ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (2004). * ''Against Oblivion: The Life of Joseph Severn'', by Sheila Birkenhead, 1943 London. * ''Illustrious Friends: The Story of Joseph Severn and His Son Arthur'', by Sheila Birkenhead, 1965 New York. {{DEFAULTSORT:Newton, Ann Mary 1832 births 1866 deaths 19th-century English painters 19th-century English women 19th-century English people 19th-century English women painters

Biography

See also

References

Sources