A Lady No More

The current trend (in sending my material belongings back into the void, i.e., clean up clean out spring cleaning with a fury), I came across one of my favorite books from my high school years- Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, which I do not remember much of now in the dim light of the past, but for some reason (which I could probably explain but which you may suspect) I had a fondness for the pink background and especially the cover image, which is of Lady Hamilton as Circe.  I remember telling my old but no longer so dear friend that it would be fun to find out more about her, but I had not done so since that remark of two decades ago.

Well, a few weeks ago, I found myself at the Frick, wandering about and coming face to face with a similar portrait.  I said to my companion, "That looks like Lady Hamilton as Circe," to which she of course had no idea of what I was referring, and when I saw the description, indeed it was She.

Upon returning home, I had the convenience to look up Lady Hamilton on the internet, but this was something that I really should not have done.  Without going into detail, it turns out that she was no "lady" at all but merely one of the many of those types of women who emerge in society with suspect backgrounds, fall into obscurity but try to claw back into the spotlight, but are best remembered as vague portraits for the aesthete- many years removed.