ANDREW PLIMER

Andrew Plimer worked at the zenith of the portrait miniature in England during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He painted prolifically from his studio on Golden Square, in London’s fashionable Soho, where other artists such as Angelica Kauffman R.A. (1741-1807) and Martin Archer Shee P.R.A. (1769-1850) also resided in the 1780s and ‘90s. 

This young lady’s portrait is dateable to the mid-1790s and she wears the fashionable white chemise dress of the period. The straw hat she wears may have been a studio prop, as an almost identical hat with the very pale brown ribbon appears in many of Plimer’s female portraits of this period. With her hair worn loose, it’s likely the sitter was unmarried, perhaps a debutante making her first foray into London society. This occasion, termed ‘coming out’, may have been marked by commissioning her portrait in miniature – possibly intended for a potential husband, or maybe a family keepsake in anticipation of her inevitable departure to married life.