This collection of works by Louisa Catherine Paris (1812–1875) represent the intersection of various significant families of Victorian Britain. Louisa's paternal grandmother was Elizabeth Paris (née Ayrton), daughter of the 18th-century composer Edmund Ayrton. Elizabeth Paris moved in the circles of Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, described in a letter from Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth as 'Mrs. Paris, our Cambridge friend'.
Louisa's father, Dr John Ayrton Paris, was a notable physician, who became president of the Royal College of Physicians and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Dr Paris was a close friend of the prominent agriculturalist and writer Arthur Young (1741–1820) of Bradfield Hall, Suffolk, and there are paintings in the collection related to Young and Bradfield.
Louisa's brother, Thomas Clifton Paris (1819–1909), was also an artist, who exhibited at the Royal Academy and wrote and illustrated travel books.
The Paris family were related to the Clifton family, and by extension, the Bell, Gurney, Barclay and Fry families—prominent in banking and Quaker reform in the 19th century. There is a portrait in the collection by Louisa Paris depicting Louisa Clifton (1814–1880), who was the daughter of Marshall Waller Clifton and Elinor Bell (a first cousin of Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer). In 1841 Louisa Clifton travelled with her parents and several siblings to help found Australind, a new colony in the south-west corner of Western Australia. Her diaries are now in the National Library of Australia, and include a portrait of her which is very similar to our portrait by Louisa Paris. There is also a portrait in our collection of a Miss L. Bell, and another that bears close resemblance to the Quaker philanthropist and author Priscilla Wakefield (née Bell, sister to Elinor Bell) (1751–1832).
Taken as a whole, the collection represents female talent and connection with a number of female figures of rare influence in Victorian Britain. Louisa Paris's watercolours are in the Towner collection in Eastbourne, where her work is described as having 'more than general historical interest, reflecting a personality that goes well beyond the Victorian amateur woman painter stereotype'.
