Rhoda Delaval

July 2 2020

Image of Rhoda Delaval

Picture: The National Portrait Gallery, London

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

This blog tends to stay away from celebrating #OTD (onthisday) anniversaries. However, I thought this would make for a good exception.

Yesterday Twitter was awash with posts celebrating the birth of the artist Rhoda Delaval (1725-1757). The image above is Arthur Pond's portrait of Delaval at work, owned by the NPG and on loan to the No. 1 Royal Crescent Museum in Bath.

Despite her relative fame, one account pointed out that Rhoda Delaval does not yet have an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This seems like a very good opportunity for a scholar of art history to correct this omission.

For anyone who might like to read more in the meantime, here is Neil Jeffares's entry for the artist in his online Dictionary of Pastellists. Furthermore, here is a link to the three paintings by here on ArtUK. I'm sure there are more pictures by Delaval waiting to be reidentified.


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