Rolinda Sharples
We all know this painting, used on zillions of book covers, and I love it. Technically it may not be the greatest painting in the world but it has a delightful quirkiness and great detail of faces, expressions, clothes. It's Rolinda Sharples' painting of 1817 (probably) of the Cloak-Room at the Clifton Assembly Rooms. Rolinda Sharples (1793-1838) is a bit of a mystery. Go here , and you'll find her celebrated as an American woman painter. Everywhere else, including the Bristol Art Museum which houses this painting, you'll find she's a Bristol girl. She's a contemporary of the female offspring of the celebrated Peale family of artists, Anna Claypoole Peale, (1791-1878), Margaretta (1795-1882) and Sarah Miriam (1800-1885). I'll talk about them another time. The Sharples family were, like the Peales, a multi-generational family of artists. Rolinda was the daughter of James and Ellen, both artists. She was born either in New York in 1794 or in Bristol or Bath i...