Emma Hart as Circe by George Romney 1782

"This unfinished, life-size sketch in oil paint represents the seventeen year-old Emma Hart (baptised as Emy Lyon, also known as Emily Lyon and Emma Lyon, later Lady Hamilton; 1765–1815) in the character of the sorceress Circe from Greek mythology. Hart wears loose white drapery exposing her throat and chest, her auburn hair piled ‘high’ in a top-knot whipped by the wind, with loose hair trailing over her bare shoulder. She stares directly outwards, her face tilted slightly downwards and her mouth opened a little in a pronounced pout. Her features are fully realised in paint, while her costume and hair are loosely brushed in and the background is very roughly sketched with apparently arbitrary brush strokes of earth colour animating the canvas; the several long, vertical strokes of white paint on the right indicate in a very approximate way the intended position of the sitter's left arm. The rough surface of the hessian fabric used as the painting’s support breaks up many of these brushstrokes, enhancing the impression of swift, almost reckless execution. This painting was among the first of Romney’s numerous portraits of Emma Hart painted over the succeeding nine years, which often represent her as characters from myth and literature. These have become the works for which Romney is best known, as Emma Hart’s complex and extremely public love life (most famously her later romance with Admiral Nelson while married to the aged Sir William Hamilton) has been mythologised by numerous biographies and historical studies."

 -taken from Tate link below

Emma Hart as Circe by George Romney 1782. Tate Institution.

Source/Quote:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/romney-emma-hart-as-circe-n05591