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Mrs. George Baldwin (Jane Maltass, 1763–1839) by http://www.wikidata.org/.well-known/genid/3d2ad7926b070fe65eedb62a1383ab62

http://www.wikidata.org/.well-known/genid/3d2ad7926b070fe65eedb62a1383ab62 · 1782-01-01

Jane Maltass was nineteen when Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her portrait in 1782. But she was not in London. She had recently married George Baldwin, a British diplomat stationed in Alexandria and later Cairo, and it was through him that she adopted the striking Ottoman fashions you see in this painting. The striped turban was not a costume; it was her real wardrobe, a mark of a life lived between cultures. The painting now hangs in a private collection.

The portrait rewards a slow look. The eyes avoid yours entirely, her gaze directed downward and away. This is not shyness. It is a kind of self-possession that asks you to read her rather than meet her. Follow the painter's hand: the thick cream fur, the soft chin shadow that models her jaw, the pink rose pinned high. Then look at her hands.

Most formal 18th-century portraits arrange hands with symbolic care, holding a fan, a letter, a child. Jane's hands simply rest, one over the other, relaxed and untheatrical. Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy, was famous for his Grand Manner portraits of aristocrats. Here he painted a merchant's wife abroad with unusual intimacy.

A nineteen-year-old, already far from her birthplace, wearing a borrowed culture with ease, holding a quiet all her own. What do you read in that face?

Details

She is nineteen years old and newly married.
She is nineteen years old and newly married.
The year is 1782. She is not in England.
The year is 1782. She is not in England.
Her husband is a diplomat in the Levant. The turban is not fancy dress.
Her husband is a diplomat in the Levant. The turban is not fancy dress.
It is a real fashion she adopted in a place far from home.
It is a real fashion she adopted in a place far from home.
Look at her hands. They do not pose for ceremony.
Look at her hands. They do not pose for ceremony.
Transcript

She is nineteen years old and newly married. The year is 1782. She is not in England. Her husband is a diplomat in the Levant. The turban is not fancy dress. It is a real fashion she adopted in a place far from home. Look at her hands. They do not pose for ceremony. They rest naturally, as if you walked in on a quiet moment. The painter gave his nineteen-year-old sitter a woman's composure.