The English Rose @ The Bowes Museum

The catalyst for this exhibition The English Rose – Feminine Beauty from Van Dyck to Sargent – a salute to 400 years of society beauties – is a portrait recently acquired by the Museum via Arts Council England.
The exhibition’s themes centre on the artists represented, their sitters and fashions, and will follow a chronological order from the 17th to the 20th Century. Alongside The Bowes Museum’s two Van Dyck’s, it will feature paintings by Gainsborough, Reynolds, George Romney, John Singer Sargent and Peter Lely, loaned from galleries around the UK including the National Gallery; the V&A Museum, London; Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Holburne Museum, Bath, and the National Galleries of Scotland.  

Many of the sitters are as famous as those engaged to paint them.