Amelia Long

Amelia Long was well known in her day as a skilled watercolor painter and garden designer. She was an honorary exhibitor at London’s Royal Academy of Arts at a time when very few women were admitted as members. Long took watercolor lessons from artist Thomas Girtin; her access to this private training was made possible through her wealth and social privilege as a noblewoman. In this painting, she depicts Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the archbishop of Canterbury, from the north bank of the Thames. 

–Sarah Mirseyedi, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs