Read, Katherine

(1723 - 78), painter and miniaturist; b. Forfar, 5th child of Alexander Read; studied in Paris 1745 with Quentin de la Tour; London 1754; exh. SA 1760 - 72: FS 1761 - 8: RA 1773 - 6; to India 1777, d. on return journey.

1751 - 3 Rome (by 16 Jun. 1751 - Jun. 1752 - ), Capua (20 Mar. 1753), Naples (Mar. - Apr.), Bologna, Venice, Turin [Paris Aug. 1753]

Katherine Read was described late in life by Fanny Burney as melancholy, shrewd and clever, 'most exceedingly ugly' and negligent in her dress.1 In 1751, aged twenty-seven and having already studied under Quentin de la Tour in Paris, she went alone to Italy to complete her training.2 On 16 June 1751 she wrote to her eldest brother from Rome 'I have had no money but from you since I came abroad ... I am obliged to board, otherwise I could live at a third of the expense; this you may be believe is no small vexation'. In the same letter she said she was studying under L.-G. Blanchet, and copying portraits by Dolci and Van Dyck; 'I apply so constantly and take every decent method of improvement that I think it must be impossible I can miss. I am but in a manner beginning to be known here'. She had met Cardinal Albani and was copying four heads by Rosalba Carriera from his collection. In her next letter of 6 January 1752 she said she had painted two Italian Princesses and was soon to paint Prince Caesarini's brother, but payment, she complained, was made only with trinkets, 'for you must know that Italians despise people so much that are obliged to do anything for money'. Lord Charlemont, however, would pay her for the profile she was to paint of the marchesa Gabrielli; she had also drawn some pastel heads, succeeding beyond her expectation. Since 'no unmarried woman is ever seen in the street alone', the Abb? Grant became her regular companion. In January 1752 the Abb? wrote to Katherine's brother confirming her 'very great talent' in pastels and saying that were it not that her sex prevented her from attending academies, she would doubtless 'shine wonderfully' at history painting too. In June 1752 Cardinal Albani sat to her; 'she is the first foreigner', commented Grant, 'that ever one of such personages vouchsafed to sit to'. In August Albani was recommending her to Bubb Dodington in England.3

On 20 March 1753 she was in Capua (accompanied by 'Guillermo Rigg' [Thomas Rigge?]) on her way to Naples.4 She wrote a third time to her brother on 6 April 1753, saying she had seen in Naples pictures belonging to the King, Prince Sabino and the Duke della Torre, but the Carthusians, 'those superstitious biggots', would not allow a female to see their pictures. It appears that from Naples she returned home through Bologna and Turin,5 as well as Venice, where she met and sat to Rosalba Carriera. On 20 August 1753 she wrote from Paris an affectionate letter to Rosalba in Venice as 'la Demoiselle qui a fait mon Portrait'. Read was then about to return to London with her father who had come to meet her.6 On 31 May 1756 she wrote again to Rosalba: 'je vous considere comme une personne remplie d'inspiration et d'id?es vraiment belles et angeliques'.7

1. L.E. Trudie ed., Early Jnls.and Letters of Fanny Burney, 2:4, 70. 2. See A.F. Steuart, Scottish Hist. Review, 2[1905]: 39f. 3. Lewis 1961, 160 (15 Aug. 1753). 4. ASN cra 1257. 5. Skinner, Scots in Italy, 32. 6. Sani 1985, 729 - 30. 7. Ibid., 732 - 3.