Emily Warren (courtesan)
{{short description|Celebrated courtesan in 18th century London}}
{{other people|Emily Warren}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Emily Warren
| image = Joshua Reynoldsre thais.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Joshua Reynolds, Thaïs, 1781. Oil on canvas. Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire.[http://collection.waddesdon.org.uk/search.do?view=detail&page=1&id=41445&db=object Thaïs.] Waddesdon Manor. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
| birth_name =
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| nationality = British
| other_names = Emily Pott
Emily Bertie
Emily Coventry
| occupation = Courtesan
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}}
File:Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be Emily Bertie Pott.jpg
Emily Warren, also known as Emily Bertie, Emily Coventry{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}} and Emily Pott,[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=111018 Emily Warren (Biographical details).] British Museum. Retrieved 5 May 2016. (died 1781[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw68615/Emily-Warren-Emily-Pott-Thas Emily Warren ('Emily Pott') ('Thaïs').] National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 5 May 2016. or 1782){{cite web |title=George Romney - Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be Emily Bertie Pott (died 1782) |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437498 |website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum |access-date=13 October 2018 |language=en}} was a celebrated courtesan in 18th century London who was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Nathaniel Dance, and the Scottish miniaturist Charles Shirreff, although the images of Warren by Dance and Shirreff are lost or unidentified. Warren figured prominently in the memoirs of William Hickey.{{cite web |url=http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/articles/courting-the-courtesans/ |title=Courting the Courtesans |first=Adrian |last=Teale |date=24 September 2013 |website=Erotic Review |access-date=5 May 2016}}{{sfn|Hickey|1782}}
Biography
As a child, Warren wandered the streets with her blind beggar father.{{sfn|Clee|2011|p=118}}{{sfn|Baetjer|2009|p=128}} At the age of 12 Warren was "discovered" by Charlotte Hayes and trained to work as a prostitute in Hayes' "nunnery".{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}} Hayes taught her deportment and manners and she received "universal admiration".{{sfn|Clee|2011|p=119}} Hickey saw Warren around this time before departing for India in 1776.{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}} Reynolds probably first met Warren at Hayes' establishment in the late 1770s.{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}} He, and other artists, were known to visit London's brothels in search of models.{{sfn|Williams|2007|p=51}}
Warren left Hayes' establishment to become the mistress of Charles Greville,{{cite web |title=Pott, Emily (Miss) |url=http://garrick.ssl.co.uk/names/SPO018 |website=The Garrick Club Collections |access-date=6 January 2019}} who commissioned Reynold to paint her as Thaïs.{{sfn|Williams|2007|p=51}}{{sfn|Farington|1924|p=291}} In 1778 she left Grenville to be "kept" by Hickey's friend, Captain Robert (Bob) Pott of the East India Company. He set her up in a house in Cork Street,{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}} with liveried servants, a yellow carriage and a box at the opera house.{{cite web |title=Fifty Shades of the Georgians: Bonkbusters Are Nothing New |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adrian-teal/fifty-shades-of-the-georgians_b_3635172.html |first=Adrian |last=Teal |website=HuffPost UK |access-date=6 January 2019 |language=en |date=23 July 2013}}
In July 1780 Pott left for India and in the same month Hickey returned from the colony. Hickey and Warren resumed their relationship.{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}} To support his view that Warren was 'perfection', Hickey sought the opinion of Reynolds, "whom all the world allowed to be a competent judge" of beauty. Reynolds "declared every limb of hers perfect symmetry, and altogether he had never seen so faultless and finely formed a human figure."{{sfn|Cruickshank|2010}}
=Death=
Pott returned from India and the couple married. They sailed off to India to start a new life, much to the disapproval of Pott's father.{{sfn|Hickey|1782|p=321}} Between Madras and Calcutta Warren died of a fever. Pott was so distraught that he had her coffin placed in a small boat that was towed behind the ship.{{sfn|The Gin Lane Gazette|1782|p=1785}} On arrival in Calcutta her body was interred in the holy burial ground by the Hooghly River. Potts commissioned an architect, Edoardo Tiretta, to construct a mausoleum for her over the grave at a cost of £3,000 and a column for an additional £1,000.{{sfn|The Gin Lane Gazette|1782|p=1785}}
References
{{Reflist|25em}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book |last1=Baetjer |first1=Katharine |title=British Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575-1875 |date=2009 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=9781588393487 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FZzL3ey6gDYC&pg=PA128 |language=en}}
- {{cite book |last1=Clee |first1=Nicholas |title=Eclipse |date=2011 |publisher=Black Swan |isbn=9780552774420 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sniFhiUIy78C&q=emily+warren+courtesan&pg=PA118 |language=en}}
- {{cite book |last1=Cruickshank |first1=Dan |title=The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital |date=2010 |publisher=Random House |isbn=9781407089515 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4jQXAgAAQBAJ&q=emily+warren+&pg=PT172 |language=en}}
- {{cite book |first=Joseph |last1=Farington |title=The Farington Diary |publisher=HardPress Publishing |isbn=9781313924924 |url=https://archive.org/details/faringtondiaryvo027698mbp/page/n289 |language=English|year=1924 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Hickey |first1=William |title=Memoirs of William Hickey ... |date=1782 |publisher=Hurst & Blackett, Limited |isbn=9780710081292 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jXcNAAAAIAAJ&q=emily&pg=PA154 |language=en}}
- {{cite book |editor1-last=Teal |editor1-first=Adrian |title=The Gin Lane Gazette: A Profusely Illustrated Compendium of Devilish Scandal and Oddities from the Darkest Recesses of Georgian England |date=1782 |publisher=Unbound Publishing |isbn=9781908717764 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FXEuCQAAQBAJ&q=emily+warren+ |ref={{harvid|The Gin Lane Gazette|1782}} |language=en}}
- {{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Kate |title=England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton |date=2007 |publisher=Penguin Random House |isbn=9780099451839 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2S6FKhcSuwEC&q=charles+greville+emily+warren&pg=PA51 |language=en}}
External links
{{Commons category|Emily Warren (courtesan)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Warren, Emily}}