English Artist: Maria Chalon

Lieut. Col. James Noble (1788-1837) of the
29th Regiment of Native Infantry on the Madras Establishment
at the East Indies Company of Masulipatnam, British India

English
dated 1833
by Maria Chalon (1800-1867)
(signed on backing paper to the reverse, "Maria Chalon pinxt / 1833")

3 3/8 x 4 inches (sight); frame measures 9 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches

watercolor on ivory; housed under glass in a gilded wood and gesso frame with an ormolu mat

This portrait of James Noble is one of two originals painted in 1833 by Maria Chalon. (Presumably, each copy was to be given to different familiy members of James Noble.) This copy was purchased for the Tormey-Holder Collection in 2015. The second copy has been in a private collection in the United Kingdom, but at last knowledge was sold at auction in March 2021, by Hannam's Auctioneers, Selborne, U.K. (about 58 miles southwest of London).

Close up view of the portrait

About the Artist: Maria Chalon was born in London; daughter of the esteemed animal painter Henry Barnard Chalon. Considered one of the most talented and successful female British miniaturists of the early nineteenth century. In 1841, she married Henry Moseley, himself also a painter and engraver. Between 1819 and 1866, she exhibited no less than 149 works at the Royal Academy of Arts. Also exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists (1834), the Suffolk Street Gallery, the British Institution (1863), and the Society of Women Artists (1857-1862). Listed by Benezit, Blättel (pages 212, 213, 654, 655), Foskett (page 603 - listed under the name Mrs. Henry Moseley) and Schidlof (page 137).

Other portraits in the Tormey-Holder Collection by Maria Chalon
(click photo for larger view and additional information):

Miss Isabella Duncanson Noble (1790-1870,
Youngest Sister of Lt. Col. James Noble),
Wearing a Tartan Shawl, a Large Gold Brooch
and a Pearl Ferronnière