Mrs. Elizabeth Clabburn. 1861. Oil on mahogany panel. 24 x 19 5/8 inches (60.9 x 49.8 cm). Private collection. Image shown here by kind permission of Christie's. Right click disabled; not to be reproduced.
This portrait of Elizabeth Denn Clabburn (1786-1862) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862, no. 350. She was the wife of Thomas Clabburn of Norwich and the mother of William H. Clabborn who commissioned the portrait. Betty Elzea describes this portrait in this way:
Bust, the body and head face half to right. She is wearing a headdress of white muslin edged with lace with a bow tied under her chin of the same material. Over her dark dress she wears a square muslin collar, and there is a panel of fur down the front of the bodice. In the background is a flowering plant…. The historical costume and style of the work (that of a 17th century Dutch portrait) was the last of his early essays in this manner and is by far the most successful. It is the first of several outstanding portraits of elderly women, mothers of his patrons" (162).
William S. Talbot has compared this painting to another famous portrait by Sandys, that of Mrs. Susanna Rose:
Mrs. Elizabeth Clabburn, Senior, Sandys's first depiction of old age, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862. This matriarch of a prominent Norwich family was painted like a sober Dutch elder in grays and whites with an expanse of simple linen enframing her impassive face. There is a quiet solidity about this figure which has been treated with considerable sympathy but less lively animation than in the portrait of Mrs. Rose done the following year. In gothic lettering at the upper right Elizabeth Clabburn's name is inscribed with her age of seventy-five years. The costume, dark coloring, and inscription are obvious references to Dutch painting of the seventeenth century. Mrs. Clabburn was eight years older than Mrs. Rose when Sandys painted her and possibly of a very different character, but that does not sufficiently account for the striking difference between these two portraits of elderly ladies painted only one year apart. The trip to Belgium and exposure to Netherlandish painting and the art of Holbein seem to have opened Sandys's eyes to the possibility of successfully rendering advanced age with the same intensity of detail and sharpness of observation he and the Pre-Raphaelites used in other subjects. [306]
Sandys's trip to the Netherlands and Belgium occurred in April 1862.
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
When it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1862 a critic for The Art Journal admired its draughtsmanship: "Mr. Sandys' portrait of Mrs. Clabburn (350) is a vigorous example of pencilling – firm, with much life-like expression. The arrangement of the drapery is peculiar, but effective" (137). J.M. Gray in the Art Journal in his article on Sandys in 1884 also commented on its Old Masterish qualities: "One of the earlier and more remarkable of the portraits in oil by Mr. Sandys is a head of Mrs. Clabburn, senr., a powerful study in greys, and whites, and blacks. In its breadth and quietude, in the sobriety of its colouring and its masterly rendering of the features, the work is strongly suggestive of Holbein, and it contrasts with the brilliant hues and varied accumulation of detail which are characteristic of much of Mr. Sandys's later portraits" (78).
Bibliography
Elzea, Betty. Frederick Sandys 1829-1904. A Catalogue Raisonné. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 2001, cat. 2.A.29, 162-63.
Gray, John Miller "Frederick Sandys." The Art Journal XLVI (March 1884): 73-78.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series I (1 June 1862): 129-138.
Talbot, William S. "A Victorian Portrait by Frederick Sandys." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art LXVII (December 1980): 298-309.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series I (1 June 1862): 129-138.
The Sunday Sale. The Collection of the Late Christopher Wood. London: Christie's South Kensington (November 8, 2009): lot 109.
Victorian & Traditionalist Pictures. London: Christie's (7 June 2007): lot 27, 44-45.
Created 19 July 2025