Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble

Anonymous, British, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing is a close copy of a lithograph portrait by Richard James Lane based on a lost drawing by Lawrence. The subject is Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble, an English actress and authoress, daughter of Charles Kemble, and niece of Sarah Siddons. Lawrence was a close to the family, and painted the subject's father and aunt a number of times in stage roles. In 1832 Fanny married an American, Pierce Mease Butler, whom she met while touring the United States with her father, but the marriage was not a success. She returned to England with her two daughters, and was divorced in 1849.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art