Clara Maria Pope 1767 – 1838
(née Leigh, first married name Wheatley)
Painter, artist model
c1767 – 24 December 1838
Victorian School, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Education
Francis Wheatly, Pope’s first husband instructed Pope on the painting of watercolour genre scenes.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
From 1796 Exhibited at the Royal Academy mostly exhibiting miniatures, portraits and genre scenes and later fruit and flower paintings.
Provided illustrations (large scale watercolours) for botanical magazines including Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Monograph on the Genus Camellia (1819) and The Beauties of Flora (1820).
Clara Maria Pope, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
1835 Commissioned by Sir John Soane to paint The Flowers of Shakespeare.
Taught drawing, notably to Princess Sophia of Gloucester and the Duchess of St Albans to enable her to support her family.
Issues
After the death of her first husband, Francis Wheatly, struggled to support her five children.
Connection to Bloomsbury
1835-1838 Lived in Store Street, Bloomsbury.
Female Networks
Eliza Soane
Works include:
A Group of Flowers in a Classical Vase.
Fruit, Flowers and a Squirrel on a Stone Slab.
The Flowers of Shakespeare.
Further reading