Written by Volunteer Nicola Campbell.

A good portrait is like a time portal, allowing us to connect with someone long gone. Watts tried to capture not just how someone looked, but who they truly were. When we stand in front of his portraits, we get a felt sense of what the person looking back at us is like.

This gives us a chance to get a unique view of history. Under a portrait’s watchful gaze, we can imagine historical facts from the sitter’s perspective…

The year is 1843. You are Lady Mary Augusta Fox Holland. We’ll call you Augusta; everybody does. You are now 31 years old, which makes you feel ancient. You live at the British Embassy in Florence, Casa Feroni. You are married to Lord Henry Fox Holland, the Fourth Baron Holland and British Minister to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Henry is famously charming, making him well suited to life as a diplomat. His job supplements his income and gives you both a good reason not to live in England. The warm climate suits you both, as does being far away from his dreadful mother. That’s a story for another day though. Henry’s role means you both entertain frequently at home, but it keeps him busy elsewhere too.

You’ve been married for 10 years. Yet despite everyone’s expectations, you haven’t become a mother. Your role in life is very clear – give birth to the fifth Baron Holland. You must provide Henry with an heir, and ideally a spare. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as it sounds.

You’ve lost two babies already. The two boys you longed for. The first was stillborn, five years ago. The second was just last year. That little one was born and died on the same day. You know you must keep trying, but you are beginning to give up hope. Trying, and failing, never becomes any easier. Besides, you are getting awfully old to have babies now.

So here you find yourself: childless, not getting any younger, with a charming husband who has lots to do elsewhere.

Then, in October, a young painter arrives at Casa Feroni. Watts is his name. He’s not of your set, and still completely unknown. Charming story: he won a competition and spent all his winnings to come to Italy. He’s very keen on art, as you’d expect. He seems a bit overawed by the Casa, which is a little imposing if you aren’t used to that sort of thing. He just came for lunch, but you saw an opportunity. You had very few engagements that week, so what better use of the time than having your portrait painted?

The process of having one’s portrait painted by Watts is not what you’d expected. For hours on end, you become his world. He ‘sinks himself’, becoming utterly lost in you. Something about ‘painting the mental as well as the physical likeness’. It’s as if he sees underneath one’s appearance, sensing the essence of one’s being. You’re so used to being the less important one in the room: the wife, the failed mother. It has been years since you were looked at like that. In fact, he can see you in a way nobody else ever has. He sees more than a petite lady with tiny feet. He looks beyond ‘nice eyes, bad figure, dresses like Cinderella’, as Henry once described you.

It is unimaginable that you would go back to life as it was before.

So, you ask him to stay. At first just while he searches for lodgings, then for as long as he needs. It works for him – without worrying about his funds, he can stay in Italy for longer. You like him being there, and there’s plenty of space. To be honest, even the space itself feels transformed with purpose when it’s being used by him. You let him paint anywhere in the house. Then you introduce him to your summer residence, Villa Medicea at Careggi, where he marvels at the landscape and its history. When he wants to paint frescos, you have more walls built so he can paint them. You begin to see through his eyes, and that which was stale becomes beautiful again.

You feel so attached to him that at New Year you give him a gold watch and chain. You throw it around his neck, proclaiming “we not only bind you to us, we chain you!”. You’re just so caught up in the exuberance of it all.

You revel in this intimacy, this creative process with you at the center. He finds you endlessly fascinating. He doesn’t stop at just one portrait, he does many. You with a hat, on a day bed, with a dog, with flowers in your hair and with hair completely undone. He captures your playfulness, your sensuality, your fragility. Some portraits can be shared, some are for you alone. You feel inspiring, beautiful, alluring.

You have a new sense of purpose. You will take this unknown artist, with his raw talent, and make him great. He needs to be looked after; he doesn’t seem capable physically or mentally of achieving greatness alone. You find him commissions, introduce him to the best of society. It’s no hardship; he brings a special something to your entertainment. Society loves nothing more than the novel, and this handsome young man provides that in spades. He captures guests in pencil, and as if by magic they come alive on the page. He comes to balls, to dinners, to see friends. Even Henry is happy with his companionship.

There’s gossip, of course. Some refuse to come to the embassy because of the rumours about you and Watts. Most find that gossip offers more incentive to visit. Society thrives on gossip after all. One guest made a thinly veiled reference to Dante’s adulterous Paolo and Francesca. On seeing the portrait of you in a hat, he commented “Ah, nostro Paolo!”. Watts made light of it, used it as inspiration for a painting. It was a joke, but you felt the slight. You don’t care what the gossip says, but it tarnishes the whole thing.

The intensity of those early days cannot last. In 1844 you go away to Paris, another baby lost. Mr Watts is not as malleable as you had hoped. He won’t focus on becoming the artist you imagine he could be. He doesn’t want to paint portraits, doesn’t want to get payment for them. He’s starting to annoy Henry, moping around the place. Nothing seems to get through to him, until Henry locks him out of his bedroom. Sometimes a firm hand is needed.

It must be remembered that reputation is everything. Reputations are hard won and easily lost. What will yours be? You want to be remembered as a great art patron, not the woman who ruined a genius. So you tell Henry “I have a strong and determined wish to break the spell, and make him feel that his is ever a welcome guests, but not a constant and necessary inmate”. After that nothing feels quite the same. You remain in Italy for another year, but the portraits stop. When you return to London he stays behind at Careggi. In years to come he will stay at Holland House regularly, but he will never become a member of the household again.

When you are older, you will look back with fondness on this time. You will carry the most intimate picture of you in a specially made case. Hidden from others, it reminds you of how things used to be, of who you once were. When you are old and tired, you will find Watts’ presence revitalizing once more. “You never let anyone else paint everywhere” he will say, and you will feel that old twinkle return. “You were not anyone else” you will say.

Henry and Augusta were unable to have children. In 1851 they adopted a daughter, Marie Fox, who later became Princess Lichenstein. She was rumoured to be Henry’s child, but her parentage remains unconfirmed. Henry died in 1859, the last Baron Holland. Augusta survived him by 31 years, left to oversee his estate alone. She and Watts remained in contact until her death.