Pencil with coloured chalk and wash on vellum, oval, 11.4 by 8.3cm.
Inscribed: ‘Mrs. Rickett Nathaniel Hone’ on the reverse.
The sitter, Sophia Watts (1755-1830) married George Poyntz Ricketts in 1774.
The son of a Jamaican plantation owner, he was Governor of Barbados from 1794-1800.
John Downman studied at the Royal Academy Schools and spent some time in the studio of the English/American artist Benjamin West (1738-1820).
In 1795 he became an Associate of the Royal Academy where he exhibited 148 paintings, mainly portraits, between 1769 and 1819.
