Some have said that she persuaded her friends to sit to Lely, that she might learn his method of coloring. There is no doubt that she rose to the first rank in her profession. One of her sons became a painter. She died at Pall Mall in 1697, aged sixty-five.
ANNE KILLEGREW—
“A grace for beauty, and a muse for wit,” as writes one of her admirers—was the daughter of Henry Killegrew, descended of a family remarkable for loyalty, accomplishments, and talent. She proved one of its brightest ornaments. She was born in London, and at a very early age discovered a remarkable genius. She became celebrated both in painting and poetry. One of her portraits was of the Duke of York, afterward James II.; others, of Mary of Modena and the Duchess of York, to whom she was maid of honor. These pieces were highly praised by Dryden. She produced, also, several history-pieces, and pictures of still life. Becket did her miniature in mezzotint, after her own painting; it was prefixed to the published edition of her poems. The painting was in the style of Sir Peter Lely, which she imitated with great success. Her portrait, taken by Lely, has a pleasing expression, though the air is slightly prim. The dress is low-necked, with beads, and a mantle is fastened at the breast with a brooch. Curls cluster round the face; the back hair is loose and flowing.
Though called “mistress,” after the fashion of the time, Anne was never married. She was a woman of unblemished character and exemplary piety. Death cut short her promising career, by small-pox, in 1685—as Wood says, “to the unspeakable reluctancy of her relations”—when she was but twenty-five years of age. She was buried in Savoy Chapel, where a monument is fixed in the wall, bearing a Latin inscription by her father, setting forth her accomplishments, virtue, and piety.
Dryden’s ode to her memory was called by Dr. Johnson “the noblest our language has produced.” Another critic terms it “a harmonious hyperbole, composed of the fall of Adam, Arethusa, Vestal virgins, Diana, Cupid, Noah’s ark, the Pleiades, the fall of Jehoshaphat, and the last assizes.” After lauding her poetic excellence, Dryden says:
“Her pencil drew whate’er her soul designed;
And oft the happy draft surpassed the image of her mind.”
And of her portrait of James II.:
“For, not content to express his outward part,
Her hand called out the image of his heart;
His warlike mind—his soul devoid of fear—
His high-designing thoughts were figured there.”
Notwithstanding such flattery, Anthony Wood says, “There is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, if not superior;” and adds, “If there had not been more true history in her praises than compliment, her father never would have suffered them to pass the press.”
Her poems appeared after her death in a thin quarto volume, prefaced by the ode and the Latin epitaph. Among her history-pieces were “St. John in the Wilderness,” “Herodias with the Head of John the Baptist,” and “Two of Diana’s Nymphs.” The melodious eulogizer of her graces and gifts remarks of the queen’s portrait: