Anna Maria Crouch (1763–1805), née Phillips

Anna Maria Crouch was one of the most celebrated singers and actresses of the Georgian stage, a soprano who created roles in operas by Storace and Dibdin and appeared regularly at Drury Lane and the King's Theatre. George Romney's 1787 portrait, now at Kenwood House, documents her at the height of her fame. Born Anna Maria Phillips, she had married Rawlings Edward Crouch — an unhappy marriage — and later formed a long personal and professional partnership with the actor Michael Kelly. Romney's interest in theatrical subjects is well documented, and his portrait of Mrs Crouch belongs to the tradition of theatrical celebrity portraiture that developed strongly in the second half of the eighteenth century. Kenwood House, which holds an important collection of eighteenth-century British portraiture, provides an appropriate setting for this document of Georgian theatrical culture. The portrait captures the sitter's stage presence in a domestic format.

Romney paints Mrs Crouch with the vibrant, expressive quality he brought to theatrical subjects, adapting his handling to convey something of the stage personality for which she was famous. The face is given the primary tonal attention, but the overall composition has a greater animation than his portraits of professional men. The warm, luminous flesh tones are consistent with his sympathetic approach to female theatrical subjects.