Mary (Walpole) Cholmondeley (1705 - 1731)

Born 22 Aug 1705 in St Martin in the Fields, Westminster, Middlesex, England

Ancestors

Wife of George Cholmondeley KB — married 14 Sep 1723 in St. George St., Hanover Square, London, England

Descendants

Died 2 Jan 1731 at age 25 in Aix, Puy-de-Dome, Auvergne, France

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Lesia Ozurumba [send private message]

Biography

Mary, daughter of Robert and Catherine, was born on 22 Aug 1705 and baptised at St Martin in the Fields, Westminster on 11 Sep 1705. ^[1]

Notes

Commissoned by George Cholmondeley, Viscount Malpas (later third Earl of Cholmondeley), this curious conversation piece is at once stiffly solemn and profoundly subversive. Cholmondeley, shown wearing the Order of the Bath, is seated in front of his brother James, a colonel in the 34th Regiment of Foot, and gazes affectionately towards his wife Mary and their youngest son Frederick. The daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, Mary had died of consumption in France the previous year and her body had been lost in a shipwreck whilst being returned home in April 1732. The commemorative function of the family group, together with the need for Hogarth to rely on portraits for his posthumous likeness of Mary, explain the stiffness of her pose and the presence of the putti hovering above her head. The family arms, positioned over Lord Malpas, add to the impression of gravitas which suffuses the left-hand side of the image. The contrast with events on the other side of the room could scarcely be more vivid. Here, the two eldest Cholmondeley boys, George and Robert, engage in their mischief apparently oblivious to the niceties of group portraiture. As George rushes forward, Robert vigorously kicks a pile of books from a low table. The viewer, aware of these antics in a way that the other sitters appear not to be, anticipates the books' fall and the disruption it will cause. In such a way, the solemnity of the image is punctured and a finally optimistic sense of the continuity of life, embodied in the unselfconscious innocence of the children, tempers the restrained, commemorative tone of this remarkable work. In 1734, Hogarth again portrayed Cholmondeley, in a collaborative project with the sporting artist John Wooton, in which he was paid five guineas a head to paint in the features of various figures, including Frederick, Prince of Wales.' Source: Neil McWilliam, David Bindman

Sources

1. ↑ Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558-1812 . Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2020. City of Westminster Archives Centre; London, England; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers; Reference: CCDS/PR/3/4 Ancestry Record 61865 #1616481

• Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review (1732) Vol. 2, Page 586: "Arriv'd an express of the Death of the Lady Malpas, Daughter to Sir Robert Walpole, in Provence, in France, on her way to the Spaw. She has left 3 Sons, the eldest about 8 Years old."