Supporting museums Art we've helped buy Portrait of Mary Thomas, the Artist's Second Wife
Portrait of Mary Thomas, the Artist's Second Wife Portrait of Mary Thomas, the Artist's Second Wife

© Ashmolean Museum


Portrait of Mary Thomas, the Artist's Second Wife

Johann Zoffany

Art Funded
1979
Dimensions
75 x 62 cm
The second Mrs Zoffany, was a girl of humble origin and descibed by her friend as, 'a perfect beauty, good natured, kind and very charitable'.

In spite of Mary's lack of education, she rapidly acquiring polished manners and gained not only acceptance but favour in Anglo-Florentine society. Like her husband, she is buried in Kew churchyard.

Provenance

Mary Thomas; by descent.

Oil on canvas

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The Entombment of Christ
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The Birth of St John the Baptist
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The Arundel Homerus
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Study of a Monk
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Study of a devout Spanish Girl
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Study for the Consecration of a Church
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Studio pottery
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Still Life of Flowers and Vegetables
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Still Life
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Statuette of Blaise Pascal
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Statue of an Athenian lady
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Statue of a nude youth
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Standing Figure of Vishnu
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Stamping Coinage in the Mint, Calcutta
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Spring
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Sparrows and Fruiting Tree
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Some Old Master drawings
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Small Naked Portrait
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Skye
 Acquired 2002
Sketchbook - 'Drawings of B.W. 1928-1930 and S.M.'s Hands'
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Sketch for a ceiling decoration
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Silver cup
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Silver bowl
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Siena
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Shipping in a Breeze
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Sheet of figure studies
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Sheba and Solomon
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Shallow bowl
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Self Portrait
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Selection of 11 drawings
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Seated Shepherd with Cows and Sheep in a Landscape
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Seascape - 'Sailing ships entering a Harbour'
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Ruins in the Alban Hills
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Ruins and figures
 Acquired 1929
Rosamund and the Purple Jar (study)
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Roman relief portrait
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Rococo watch and case
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Road to Emmaus (studies) & The Woman of Samaria
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Portrait of the Artist
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Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus
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Porcelain Tray
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Maiolica jug
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Maiolica dish: The Departure of Ceyx
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Intaglio of Isis and Serapis
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Imari porcelain
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Head of Noneen (Head of a Girl)
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Head of an Old Man
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Group of works on paper
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Greystone
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Grain tower
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Girl with a Hoe
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Girl Feeding Chickens
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Gilbert Cannan at his Mill
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Four albums of drawings
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Four Album Leaves
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Figure of Standing Parvati
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Farmyard at Princes Risborough
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Etna from Taormina; Dawn & Boston Stump; Sunset
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Engraved dish
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Embroidered Islamic tunic
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Embroidered hanging: Musical Party in an Exotic Setting
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Eight prints 1936-74
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Early Medieval gold and garnet sword button
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Drawing of two cupids
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Drawing of three figures
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Design for an ornamental border
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Design for an engraved antique gem in an ornamental setting
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Design for All Souls Chapel
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Design for a monument to Pope Clement XI
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Death and the Girl (maiden)
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Dead Christ supported by an Angel
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Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John
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Cows at Cookham
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Collision of Particles
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Collection of twenty-five drawings
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Collection of silver plate
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Collection of silver
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Collection of prints
 Acquired 1946
Collection of Portrait Engravings
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Collection of miniature cups, teabowls and saucers
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Collection of gold boxes
 Acquired 1960
Collection of furniture
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Collection of drawings, prints and sketchbooks
 Acquired 2009
Collection of drawings
 Acquired 1943
Collection of British Studio Pottery
 Acquired 2004
Collection of 82 prints and 33 sketchbooks
 Acquired 1995
Collection of 6 Indian sculptures and a painting
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Collection of 18 Japanese wooden, bronze and ceramic decorative objects
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Collection of 14 coins
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Christian descending into the Valley of Humiliation
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Christ Church College, Oxford
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Christ Carrying the Cross
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Christ and the Woman of Samaria
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Chintz hanging from the Coromandel Coast
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Chinese ritual vessel
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Chalgrove II Hoard
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Ceiling Sketch for Mannheim Castle
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Cattle and Haystack, Twilight & Essex Fields
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Catching the Steamer
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Castle Crag, Derwentwater
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Capriccio Landscape with Figures, a Bridge over a Stream
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Calm Contortion Wine Cooler
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Caitya sculpture
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Bust of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel
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Bust of Marie de Medicis
 Acquired 2000
Bust of Edward Salter, aged six
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Bust of a Cardinal
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Bramerton Hills near Norwich
 Acquired 1927
Bouquet de Roses dans un Vase
 Acquired 1989
Boswood's Thigh and the Right Arm of Michelangelo's David
 Acquired 2002
Boar's Head Tureen
 Acquired 2006
Berck, Cloudy Landscape
 Acquired 1989
Bell salt
 Acquired 2005
Basin with the arms of Spannocchi
 Acquired 2004
Attendant bodhisattva
 Acquired 1999
Assyrian relief
 Acquired 1933
Apples in a Bag
 Acquired 1968
Animals and birds in a landscape
 Acquired 1953
Anglo-Saxon bowl
 Acquired 1977
Angelica encountering the wounded Medoro
 Acquired 2012_Mahon
An Exhibition at the Old Town Hall, Oxford
 Acquired 2004
An Allegory of Life and Death (study)
 Acquired 1937
An Allegory of Justice and Vanity
 Acquired 1939
Album of portrait drawings
 Acquired 1992
Album of drawings
 Acquired 2002
Abraham and Hagar Surprised by Sarah
 Acquired 1997
A Wooded Valley, Painswick & Old Water Mill, Bridgenorth
 Acquired 1931
A View of Southampton water
 Acquired 1963
A view of Golding, Constable's House at East Bergholt
 Acquired 1925
A View of Culzean Castle, Ayshire
 Acquired 1963
A Study of Henry Irving as Becket
 Acquired 1968
A Seated Bodhisattva
 Acquired 1983
A Ruined House
 Acquired 1931
A Portrait of Mrs Fuseli
 Acquired 1938
A November Rainbow, Dolwyddalen Valley; November 11th, 1866, 1pm
 Acquired 1922
A Mourning Knight
 Acquired 1964
A Man leading a Horse
 Acquired 1937
A Highland Scene - 'In Connernara'
 Acquired 1935
A Head of a Woman
 Acquired 1981
A Farmyard with a Well
 Acquired 1939
A collection of Japanese metalwork sword fittings
 Acquired 1997
A Beach Scene with Fisherfolk
 Acquired 1963
9th century seated Buddha
 Acquired 1997
21 pieces of Meiji ceramics
 Acquired 2014
10 landscape drawings
 Acquired 1925
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 Acquired 2009
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 Acquired 2010
1) Figure on horseback; 2) Delacroix letter
 Acquired 2008
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 Acquired 2009
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 Acquired 1931

Nominally inspired by Lucretius' De rerum natura, Piero di Cosimo's The Forest Fire takes its scientific subject and embellishes it with fantastical creatures from the artist's imagination: Bulls, bears, lions and deer-like creatures with human faces all flee wearily from a fire.

Rubens' portrait of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel dates from about 1629. The Earl was a great collector, and Rubens had painted the earl's wife a few years earlier on a visit to Antwerp. This drawing in pen and ink with a chalk base is unusually informal, reflecting perhaps the comfortable relationship between artist and patron.

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