Miss Kemble

Reynolds, Joshua, after · 1784

Mezzotint portrait on paper of Frances Kemble (1759-1822), engraved and published by John Jones (c.1745-1797) in London in 1784. It is a copy of a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), identified as now in the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana, Cuba. Below, two putti hold a cartouche with the sitter's name. Frances Kemble was an actress and teacher. She came from a theatrical family, and was the younger sister of the more famous actress Sarah Siddons (1755-1831). In 1786 she married a Shakespearean scholar, Francis Twiss (d. 1827), and from 1807 ran a girl's school in Bath.