Sleeping Nymph and Cupid, 1806 (oil on canvas)

Nymph lying naked, with her head right and her arms above her head. Above her a red drapery for a canopy; Cupid can be seen flying over her. A forest glade setting. Hoppner believed this to be his masterpiece. A poem accompanied the painting when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806. At one time the reclining nude was identified with Miss Emily St Clare, although this is questionable. A letter from Hoppner to Sir John Leicester (for whom this was painted) acknowledges the receipt of 170 guineas for a ‘Portrait of Miss St Clare’ and 300 guineas for ‘my picture of a Sleeping Nymph.’ Hoppner did do a subject picture of her, but as of a ‘Lady Dancing’ (now in the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), in the guise of a muse. Originally the nymph was completely nude, but Sir John requested some covering. He wrote to Hoppner that ‘ … imagination must have something left to make the thing compleat …. To meet this idea Mr H will not perhaps object … to throw a veil over a part of ye Body.”