What is the name of the person who hoped his portrait of the Williams-Wynn children would be "one of my best"?
In mid-1833 Etty began a portrait of the daughters of Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, the long-serving Conservative Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire, shown Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball . Etty was then little-known for portraits, but had recently completed Elizabeth Potts, a portrait of the daughter of a family friend, which although poorly received by some critics was technically highly accomplished. He said at the time that he hoped his portrait of the Williams-Wynn children would be "one of my best".In February 1834, Etty became seriously ill, and was incapacitated for four months. Unable to paint, he exhibited only two already-completed paintings in the 1834 Summer Exhibition, Elizabeth Potts and The Cardinal. In June of that year he left London to convalesce, renting a cottage in York. Weak and unable to concentrate, Etty painted very little, and spend the next few months visiting friends and touring the sights of Yorkshire. Gradually regaining his health, he returned to London in December 1834, and resumed work on those paintings he had left incomplete on the onset of his illness.
We must, indeed, be more serious with this gentleman [Etty] than is our wont, for the "Society for the Suppression of Vice" are not to be excused for their prosecutions in cases of obscene publications, and the Lord Mayor himself deserves at once to be sent to the tread-mill for imprisoning a little Italian boy for hawking about the streets a naked Cupid, if such lascivious scenes, such gross insults to morality and decency, are allowed to be exhibited at the Roy. Acad. with impunity. A Brothel on fire, which had driven all the Paphian Nymphs out from their beds into the court-yard, would be a modest exhibition compared to this—for they would at least exhibit en chemise. Several ladies, we know, were deterred from going into this corner of the room to see Leslie's, Webster's, and other pictures of great merit there, to avoid the offence and disgrace Mr. E. has conferred on that quarter ... Really, really, if Mr. E., with all his power of colour, turn his drawings of the human figure to no honester purpose—if the absence of all taste and decency is to mark his Academical studies, it is high time that he had a hint from an authority which neither he nor the Council of the Academy will dare to treat slightly. The Archbishop of Canterbury and some of our Bishops are fond of the arts—what say they to them in this shape?
In August 1835 Etty spent a brief holiday in Shropshire, where he delivered Venus and Her Satellites to Owen. While en route back he made a detour to Manchester to visit an art exhibition; while there he made the acquaintance of wealthy cotton merchant Daniel Grant.
Etty