Cheshire 1765 – Calais 1815
The "Miss Harte" of the Italian Journey: "the unfamous name of a famous woman", as Croce writes. A blacksmith's daughter and Romney's model in London, she arrives in Naples in April 1786 at the wish of Charles Greville, nephew of the British envoy, and by the end of the year she is the companion of Sir William Hamilton, who will marry her in 1791. Goethe sees her at Caserta, in mid-March 1787, in her "attitudes": in Greek costume, her hair loose, with a few shawls, she passes from one antique figure to the next. On 27 May, dining at the Hamiltons', he hears her sing.
Main image: AI reconstruction at the age 22, as in 1787, based on the period portrait (SPUN, 2026).
Sources: J. W. Goethe, Italienische Reise; B. Croce, Goethe a Napoli (1903).
Hamilton has made a fine life for himself: rooms in the English taste and a corner view perhaps unique, and after ranging through every realm of creation he has arrived at a beautiful woman.
A guest of Hackert in the old palace, beside the new one «like the Escorial».
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