Mrs. Bunbury

John Young

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Catherine Bunbury, née Horneck, came to London from Devon as a girl, accompanying her mother and elder sister Mary after the loss of their father. Welcomed into the social circle of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the sisters were celebrated for their charm and beauty. Oliver Goldsmith nicknamed Catherine "Little Comedy" for her resemblance to the smiling figure in Reynolds painting "Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy." In 1771, at the age of seventeen, Catherine married the gentleman artist-caricaturist Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), her groom just twenty-one. The couple lived in small house on the grounds of Barton Hall, Suffolk (the main residence was occupied by Henry's elder brother, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury). Hopper here portrays his sitter two decades later, by which time her husband had became equerry to the Duke of York.

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