Portrait of Ada Lovelace | |
---|---|
Artist | Margaret Sarah Carpenter |
Year | 1836 |
Type | Oil on canvas, portrait |
Dimensions | 220 cm× 137 cm(85 in× 53.9 in) |
Location | Government Art Collection, London |
Portrait of Ada Lovelace is an 1836 portrait painting by the British artist Margaret Sarah Carpenter depicting the mathematician Ada Lovelace.
Lovelace was the only daughter of the poet Lord Byron and his estranged wife Lady Byron and was raised by her mother. A contemporary of Charles Babbage she was one of the pioneers of computer science. [1] Carpenter emerged as a prominent female artist of the Regency era, producing fashionable society portraits that drew comparisons to Thomas Lawrence. [2]
Lovelace is depicted in full-length white dress with a red cape over her shoulders. It was painted the year she gave birth to her first child, having married her husband William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace the previous year. [3] The paitiing was exhibited at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition of 1836. [4] It is today part of the Government Art Collection and in 2023 was loaned to the National Portrait Gallery in London where it is on display. [5]
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation.
The Difference Engine (1990) is an alternative history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is widely regarded as a book that helped establish the genre conventions of steampunk.
Earl of Lovelace was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1838 for William King-Noel, 8th Baron King, a title created in 1725.
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron, nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was an educational reformer and philanthropist who established the first industrial school in England, and was an active abolitionist. She married the poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron, and separated from him after less than a year, keeping their daughter Ada Lovelace in her custody despite laws at the time giving fathers sole custody of children.
The Lovelace Medal was established by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in 1998, and is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the understanding or advancement of computing. It is the top award in computing in the UK. Awardees deliver the Lovelace Lecture.
Baron Wentworth is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1529 for Thomas Wentworth, who was also de jure sixth Baron le Despencer of the 1387 creation. The title was created by writ, which means that it can descend via female lines.
Conceiving Ada is a 1997 film produced, written, and directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Henry S. Rosenthal was co-producer of the film. The cinematography was by Hiro Narita and Bill Zarchy.
Ada Byron Milbanke, 14th Baroness Wentworth was a British peer.
Byron King-Noel, 12th Baron Wentworth, styled Viscount Ockham was a British peer and the eldest of the three legitimate grandchildren of poet Lord Byron.
The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and around the world, and to promote British art, culture and history. The GAC now holds over 14,000 works of art in a variety of media, including around 2,500 oil paintings, but also sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles and video works, mainly created by British artists or artist with a strong connection to the UK, from the sixteenth century to the present day. Works are displayed in several hundred locations, including Downing Street, ministerial offices and reception areas in Whitehall, regional government offices in the UK, and diplomatic posts outside the UK.
Ralph Gordon King-Milbanke, 2nd Earl of Lovelace was a British nobleman and author of Astarte: A Fragment of Truth concerning George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron. He was Lord Byron's grandson.
Stephen Lushington, generally known as Dr Lushington, was a British judge, Member of Parliament and a radical for the abolition of slavery and capital punishment. He served as Judge of the High Court of Admiralty from 1838 to 1867.
Margaret Sarah Carpenter was an English painter. Noted in her time, she mostly painted portraits in the manner of Sir Thomas Lawrence. She was a close friend of Richard Parkes Bonington.
Joanna Mary Boyce was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She is also known by her married name as Mrs. H.T. Wells, or as Joanna Mary Wells. She produced multiple works with historical themes, as well as portraits and sketches, and authored art criticism responding to her contemporaries. She was the sister of Pre-Raphaelite watercolourist George Price Boyce.
Elizabeth Bridget Pigot (1783–1866) was a correspondent, friend and biographic source for Lord Byron.
Childe Byron is a 1977 play by Romulus Linney about the strained relationship between the poet, Lord Byron, and his daughter, Ada Lovelace. Of Linney's more than sixty plays, Childe Byron is one he identified as holding a "deeply personal" connection. In his own words, he approached it through "the pain of a divorced father who can't reach his own daughter." In his narrative poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron wrote of the female infant he left behind when he went into exile: "I see thee not. I hear thee not. But none can be so rapt in thee.” When Linney re-read these words in preparation for the play, he recalled "My daughter Laura, the actress... her mother and I were separated and divorced when she was a baby, so these lines just laid me out."
Margaret Gillies was a London-born Scottish miniaturist and watercolourist.
Florence Edith Cheesman (1877–1964) was a British artist and author, noted for her watercolours of Arabian birdlife and for producing a series of Iraqi postage stamps and postcards featuring wildlife.
Josephine Margaret Muntz Adams was an Australian artist who distinguished herself as a portraitist. Her portrait of Duncan Gillies, 14th Premier of the state of Victoria (1886-1890), hangs in Parliament House, Melbourne. Her portrait of the Queensland and Australian Federal politician Charles McDonald is in Parliament House, Canberra.
Horsley Towers, East Horsley, Surrey, England is a country house dating from the 19th century. The house was designed by Charles Barry for the banker William Currie. The East Horsley estate was later sold to William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace who undertook two major expansions of the house to his own designs. Lovelace lived at the Towers with his wife, Ada, daughter of Lord Byron, a pioneering mathematician, friend of Charles Babbage and described as among the first computer programmers. In 1919, the Towers was purchased by Thomas Sopwith, the aviator and businessman, who named his plane, the Hawker Horsley, after his home. Now a hotel, wedding and conference venue set in parkland with a total area of about 50 acres, Horsley Towers is a Grade II* listed building.