Author: SOPHIA MACNAMARA BRUNEL
Title: Hand Painted Album/Folder.
Description: 1840. Large album or correspondence folder elaborately gilt tooled with coloured leather onlays, around a central hand painted silk panel by Sophia Macnamara Hawes [née Brunel], silk lined with the inner cover having a hand painted swag of flowers with the owner's initials C.E.S. and a banner bearing the inscription "From SMH May 19 1840." With a letter from Sophia to the recipient, Charlotte, presenting the album and referring to the pleasure derived by Sophia in painting it for her. Sophia Macnamara Hawes [1802 - 1878] was the eldest child of Marc and Sophia Brunel and the sister of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the acclaimed civil engineer. She was reported to be, like her brother, prodigiously talented, and was once described by Lord Armstrong as "Brunel in petticoats." In 1820 she married Benjamin Hawes who, after a successful political career, was created Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1856. She was a highly regarded painter of porcelain> examples of her work were sold by Bonhams as part of the Brunel archive in 2011.

Keywords: Ephemera


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