Portrait Anastasia Robinson, later Countess of Peterborough (1698-1755)

Portrait of Anastasia Robinson. The later countess is shown here as a chest pattern in the half profile facing to the right. She turned her head towards the left leaf margin. She wears a simple, open-hearted dress and presumably a light cloak over her left shoulder. The hair is partially raised and decorated with beads. The effigy is caught by an oval frame, which leans against a wall with brick pattern and rests on a base. The base bears a two-line inscription “Anastasia, Countess of Peterborough.” As an English soprano, Anastasia Robinson sang regularly in Handel’s operas from about 1714. Her first appearance was probably a solo in the Ode for the birthday of Queen Anne. A year later, she took over the role of Almirena in the play “Rinaldo” and the role of Oriana for Handel’s “Amadigi.” He resumed the latter in 1717 and created a new role for her and the castrate Nicolini. Händel took her in 1720 at his Royal Academy of Music in London and employed her for a good salary until she retired from the stage business in 1724, partly because her voice became old due to a disease of soprano. The steer of the leaf is unknown. As a template would be possible a scrapbook by John Faber (1684-1756) from 1727, the sheet there shows the singer at the harpsichord (cf. BS-III 338). The present leaf here is a sideways section of Faber’s leaf. The paper is supposed to have been published in “The Universal Magazine” as a frontispiece about 1749, which has not been proven so far. Other specimens are at the Austrian National Library in Vienna and the British Museum in London. Signature: Printed for J. Hinton at the King 's Arms in Paternoster Row. Label: Anastasia, Countess of Peterborough. (Stiftung Händel-Haus Halle Foundation)