Firmin Massot (Geneva 1766-1849) Portrait of Elizabeth Broadhead, later Lady Dashwood, full-length, in a white dress and seated beside a stream signed, inscribed and dated 'FMassot. Genève./ 1818.' (on rock, lower right) oil on canvas 78.3 x 64.2cm (30 13/16 x 25 1/4in). Footnotes: Provenance By descent from the sitter's brother to Sir Theodore Brinckman, Bt. Sale, Sotheby's, London, 24 November 1999, lot 68 (sold £27,600) With Park Gallery, London, where purchased by Private Collection, UK, 1999, by whom offered Sale, Christie's, London, 3 December 2008, lot 194, where purchased by the present owner Literature V. Louzier-Gentaz, 'The works of Firmin Massot (1766-1849) in British Collections', in The British Art Journal, Autumn 2006, vol. VII, pp. 94-95, ill. fig. 7 Firmin Massot was one of the key figures of the Geneva School and a leading society portrait painter of his time. He was heavily influenced by the 'contemporary anglophilia' (Louzier-Gentaz, op.cit., p.92) that had developed in Geneva in the early 18th century, mainly due to political upheavals and religious sympathies, as well as scientific and commercial exchanges. Geneva was a necessary stop for many British grand tourists on their way to Italy, when travel allowed it. In the 1790s Massot was linked to two of his fellow students, Wolfgang Adam Topffer (1767-1847) and Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849). Following Agasse's visit to London in 1792, the three young artists began collaborating on large scale portraits with landscapes and animals together, a practice that Massot and Topffer continued after Agasse moved to England in 1800. Louzier-Gentaz has suggested that it is very probable that Topffer painted the landscape in the present work. The sitter, Elizabeth was the daughter of Theodore Henry Broadhead of Glynde, Surrey. She married Sir George Henry Dashwood, 5th Bt. of West Wycombe, in 1823. She died without issue and lived as a life tenant at West Wycombe. The portrait passed to her brother, Theodore Henry Lavington Broadhead, created a Baronet in 1831, who subsequently resumed the surname Brinckmann. On the present work Louzier- Gentaz remarks 'quite apart from the composition of the work, the date and signature in the lower right-hand corner distinguish this portrait from the others and render it historically important: Massot did not usually sign, except in rare cases, and especially when the work was painted for a foreign patron' (op. cit, p.94). For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com