The eldest daughter of the artist Charles Gore (1729-1807), Eliza Gore accompanied her father on his travels in Italy and Germany and studied art with his friend and fellow artist, Jacob Philipp Hackert, who, according to Goethe, described her as his most talented pupil. This serene pastoral landscape reflects Hackert’s influence, as well as the prevailing taste for such idyllic scenes. Although a talented amateur artist, Gore does not seem ever to have exhibited professionally or sold her work.

Eliza or Elizabeth Gore was the eldest of Gore’s three surviving daughters. She and her sisters, Emily (1756-c.1831) and Hannah Anne (1758-1826) were renowned beauties and were popular with the Royal Dukes (the sons of George III) who were on friendly terms with their father and regularly sailed in Gore’s yacht around thesouth coast. The influence of Philipp Hackert, a close family friend, from their time in Rome is evident in the present work. Eliza studied under Hackert, both in Italy and Weimar and according to Goethe, Hackert described her as his most gifted pupil. In 1776, the date of the present work, Eliza’s sister Hannah Anne married George Clavering-Cowper, the future 3rd Earl Cowper (1738-1789) in Florence. A wedding portrait showing the Cowper and Gore families by Johann Zoffany is in the Yale Center for British Art. Eliza is shown next to her sister Emily, holding a porte-crayon. Eliza married the Rev. Henry Wood D.D (1726-1790), the son of Francis Wood JP of Monk Bretton, Yorkshire. Charles Gore moved to Weimar in 1791 and Eliza, following the death of her husband the previous year, moved with him. She died there in 1802. The family collections were left to the Weimar Library, including a portrait of Eliza painted by Johann Tischbein in circa 1795. Two gouaches by her of Vesuvius erupting, dated 1775, are in the Klassik Stiftung, Weimar.

Private collection, London, purchased at auction c. 2011; Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, 2021; purchased there by the Spooner Trust, 2021

Drawings and Watercolours by Charles Gore (1729-1807), Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, 02/07/2021-09/07/2021

Drawings and Watercolours by Charles Gore (1729-1807), Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, 2021
cat. no. 17
Exhibition - Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Gallery, London, 2-9 July 2021.

Watermark: Watermarks: centre: “IV”. Backing sheet (historic), Verso: centre: a name composed of double lines, but unable to decipher; possibly marred by further marks on inner layers of laid paper.

Collector's mark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower left corner, white bodycolour, signed and dated: "EM. Gore / 1776".