Object Image

Sophia Dalrymple

Adopted by Marion Dell

A favourite model and muse, Sophia was the youngest of seven Anglo-Indian sisters – brilliant society figures whom G F Watts befriended during the late 1840s.

This fresco-like portrait shows Sophia in her early twenties. Chestnut curls frame her wide-eyed features, which prompted Ruskin to call her ‘the Elgin Marbles with dark eyes’. The heavy folds of drapery evoke the iconic Greek sculptures, which Watts so revered....

c.1851
Oil on canvas
198.0 x 78.7cm
COMWG.200

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