Ann Mary Newton

Who was Ann Mary Newton?

Mary Newton, painter, was the daughter of Joseph Severn, the artist and friend of Keats. She was taught to draw by her father, and then on the Severn family's return to England in 1841, studied with George Richmond. In 1857 she received lessons from Ary Scheffer in Paris. She specialized in portraits of children and worked in crayon, chalk, pastel and watercolour. In the mid-1850s she supported her family with a number of commissions, traveling to the homes of wealthy patrons. Her first picture to be exhibited at the Royal Academy was The Twins in 1852, a portrait of her younger brother and sister. During this time she also painted portraits of Queen Victoria's children and nephew.

In 1861 she married the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton, who became Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum. She made drawings of Greek sculpture for his public lectures and also designed illustrations for his History of the Discoveries at Helicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae and Travels and Discoveries in the Levant. A number of her important sketchbooks, which make up an important picture-diary of her travels in the eastern Mediterranean and contain witty caricatures of the family, are in the possession of Severn descendants.