Draft:Anne Grevile



Lady Anne Greville (26th August 1760 - 26th May 1783) was a British artist and aristocrat.

Family and Birth
Born in London in 1760, she was the youngest child of Elizabeth Hamilton, 1st Countess Brooke and 1st Countess of Warwick, and Francis Greville, 1st Earl Brooke and 1st Earl of Warwick.

Born when her mother Elizabeth was in her fortieth year, a surviving letter from her older sister Lady Louisa Augusta Greville indicates that Lady Anne may have been the love child of the Countess and General Robert Clerk. By 1759 the Countess's relationship to the Earl of Warwick had cooled, and the presence of Clerk both at Warwick Castle that summer and straight after the birth of Anne is suggestive that they had embarked on a love affair preceding her arrival. Elizabeth and the Earl's relationship ended shortly afterwards, culminating in a painful public separation in 1765.

Louisa's letter described the infant Anne as 'she is not big, but has a face like an Apple, large blew eyes, & very dark hair, they say it will be pretty. I really can't say for my part that I can determine it yet, it will be a great favourite'. She was Christened on 1st September 1760 with Elizabeth Thynne, Viscountess Weymouth, standing as godmother and Charles Cathcart, 9th Lord Cathcart and Brownlow Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter standing as joint godfathers.

Suffering from ill health most of her life, Anne died at the age of twenty-two from an 'inflammation of the lungs' in 1783. Her remains were interred in the Greville crypt of St. Mary's Collegiate Church in Warwick.

Education and Art
Little is known about Anne's life, apart from that she is listed as a constant companion of her mother during her frequent trips to France. It is possible that she was educated at the Abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs in Paris, as regular payments from her father's accounts to a nun Madame De St. Varand exist, alongside a gift in Lady Anne's will.

Lady Anne was also a talented artist, as her surviving Self Portrait at Warwick Castle attests. Her brothers and sisters were all trained as amateur artists, most notably including her older sister Louisa who was an engraver. Others artworks of Anne's are mentioned in the Countess of Warwick's will, which include '6 are in red chalk or colour, 3 in India Ink & a little colour, 7 India Ink & 1 in Bister. All in fframes & under glass’s'. A copy of Lady Anne's will, in her mother's hand, also explains that she wished any artworks not claimed by her mother or family to be burnt. A drawing and watercolour of a neoclassical ceiling design, inscribed Anne Greville June 1777, possibly relating to her mother's new Marylebone home designed by Robert Adam, was sold at Sotheby's in 1997.

An inscription written by her mother, attached to her Self Portrait at Warwick Castle, reads: "The above sketch a very like Portrait of Lady Anne Greville was found after her Decease amongst other drawings of hers, & is evidently an Essay she made of taking her own resemblance and the design of a Picture she meant to Paint in Crayons / Pastels & which was actually begun but only a faint outline traced. Lady Anne had sometimes given hints of having intentions of Painting her own Portrait, but never mentioned being about the execution of it. She had always much reluctance to allow any of her works being seen, her most excellent Taste and Delicacy cause her to be more apt to Criticize her own performances than to be partial to them, or even to judge of them as other did. She never had any Drawing Master, or instruction whatsoever from any Person in any sort of Painting after the time that she left Paris in the Year 1776.

Lady Anne Greville Born 26th of August 1760. Died 26th of May 1783."