Mrs. Allan Maconochie

Inscriptions

Inscribed lower left, in red paint: Js. Northcote. Fecit. 1789 (in fictive oval frame)

Provenance

Allan Maconochie (died 1816), later first lord Meadowbank, husband of the sitter; by descent to Sir Evan Maconochie; sold Christie’s London, December 17, 1926, no. 128, as Mrs. Alexander Maconochie, to Agnew, London, for 900 gns; sold by Agnew to Horace Trumbauer, November 1927, and bought back by Agnew, December 1927 [according to Agnew’s stock books; see letter of March 19, 1993, from Gabriel Naughton to Malcolm Warner, in curatorial file]; sold by Agnew to F.W. Clayton, March 1928 [see letter cited above]. F.C. Daniell, London by 1932 [see Exeter 1932]. Neumans, Paris, 1936. Daniel H. Farr Co., New York, also in 1936 [this and previous location indicated on annotated mounts of photographs in the Witt Library, London]. Mrs. Norman Armour, Jr., New York; sold Parke-Bernet, New York, January 25, 1958, no. 289 (ill.), to Newhouse Galleries, New York; sold by Newhouse to Mr. Denison B. Hull, Winnetka, 1960 [letter of Adam Williams, Newhouse Galleries, September 29, 1993 in curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute by Mr. and Mrs. Denison B. Hull, 1974.

Exhibition history

Vienna, Vereinigung bildender Künstler Wiener Secession, Meisterwerke englischer Malerei aus drei Jahrhunderten, 1927, cat. 61 (ill.). Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Works by Early Devon Painters, 1932, cat. 271, as Mrs. Alexander Maconochie.

Publications

Stephen Gwynn, Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter (London, 1898), p. 273, no. 250. John Wilson, “The Romantics, 1790–1830,” in The British Portrait, 1660–1960 (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 245–46. pl. 233. Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1996), pp. 261–4, ill.

Quick Overview

Artist: James Northcote (English, 1746-1831)
Date: 1789
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 76.4 × 63.6 cm (30 1/16 × 25 1/16 in.); Framed: 101.6 × 87.7 × 9.6 cm (40 × 34 1/2 × 3 3/4 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: oil on canvas
Style: 18th Century
Place: England
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Denison B. Hull
Accession no.: 1974.390

More by James Northcote in museum collections

Sculptor Undraping Sculpture of a Nude Woman and Child
James Northcote
1766/1831 · Drawing
Public collection via the Art Institute of ChicagoAT-00003757

Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.