JOHN HOPPNER, R.A. (1758-1810) MISS BYNG Canvas, 25 inches by 30 inches

NEARLY half-length, face turned to the left. dressed in a low neck white gown, with yellow ribbon around the waist. On her head she wears a straw hat, fitting close over the ears by means of a white scarf tied in a bow around the neck. Her hair hangs loose down her back.

Engraved in mezzotint recently by J. B. Pratt, 16 x 19 3/4. This picture comes from the family. Exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1910. Photogravure following p. 37 of "John Hoppner, R.A.," by Wm. McKay and W. Roberts, London, 1909. In text on above page:

"As the lady in this portrait is described as the daughter of Admiral Byng,' she must have been Lucy Elizabeth, daughter of Vice-Admiral George Byng (who succeeded his father as sixth Viscount Torrington in Jan., 1813), born 11th Jan., 1794; married 28th July, 1836, the Rev. John Lukin (son of the Dean of Wells); died 2d April, 1875."

In Burke's Peerage it is stated that Miss Byng's mother was the daughter of Philip Langmead, Member of Parliament for Plymouth. The artist died when the young lady was only sixteen, and did not marry until she was over forty. Her father was not the Admiral Byng who was shot for alleged cowardice.

John Hoppner, born at Whitechapel, London, April 4, 1758, died there Jan. 23, 1810. When young was a chorister in the Royal Chapel, but in 1775 became a pupil of the Royal Academy, and by the patronage of the Prince of Wales became a fashionable portrait painter, finding a rival only in Lawrence. In 1793 became an A.R.A., and in 1795 R.A.

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