The Fair Nun Unmask'd

Morland, Henry Robert, after

Mezzotint on paper of a young woman holding a fancy-dress mask possibly engraved by Richard Houston (1721-1775), proof state before publication details were added. A version by Houston without an oval frame was published by Carrington Bowles (1724-1793) in 1772. This print is a copy in reverse of a painting (1769) by Henry Robert Morland (c.1716-1797) now in Temple Newsam House, Leeds Museums and Galleries. Morland made three additional versions of that painting. It was likely one of those which was exhibited in 1769 at the Free Society of Artists in London under the title ‘A lady in a masquerade habit’. Most print copies appear to have been based on that painting. The current title, together with a couplet from Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’, was added by Carrington Bowles to a mezzotint copy published in 1769.