Helena Beatson (1762–1839) was an amateur

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those us ...

list from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

. Born in Kilrie,

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross ...

, Beatson was the daughter of writer Robert Beatson and niece of artist Catherine Read, who produced two portraits of her in addition to being her teacher. A

child prodigy A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...

, she submitted, anonymously, a set of "sketches by a child of eight years old" to the Society of Artists in 1771; they were singled out for praise by

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...

. Two drawings of gypsies and dancers were exhibited at the

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

in 1774, in which year

Fanny Burney Frances Burney (13 June 1752 – 6 January 1840), also known as Fanny Burney and later Madame d'Arblay, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. In 1786–1790 she held the post as "Keeper of the Robes" to Charlotte of Mecklen ...

visited her and her aunt and pronounced the child "a most astonishing genius, though never taught...a very wonderful girl". Beatson was quite well-travelled, visiting Charleston, South Carolina in 1772 — a trip which attracted notice in the local ''Gazette'' — and traveling with Read to India a few years later. In 1777, while there, she married

Sir Charles Oakeley, 1st Baronet Sir Charles Oakeley, 1st Baronet (27 February 1751 – 7 September 1826) was an English administrator. He married Helena Beatson, a talented amateur artist, and niece of notable Scottish portrait painter Catherine Read. He was the father of Fre ...

, later

governor of Madras This is a list of the governors, agents, and presidents of colonial Madras, initially of the English East India Company, up to the end of British colonial rule in 1947. English Agents In 1639, the grant of Madras to the English was finalized ...

. The next year she gave birth to a son, also named

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...

, and seems to have abandoned art thereafter. Lady Oakeley died at Lichfield Palace.Profile
at ''Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800''.

References

1762 births 1839 deaths 18th-century Scottish painters 18th-century Scottish women artists 19th-century Scottish painters 19th-century Scottish women artists British people in colonial India Pastel artists People from Fife Scottish women painters Wives of baronets {{Scotland-painter-stub