Lot 119: François Théodore Rochard (French, 1798-1858) Ellen Werge, wearing blue dress with frilled white pelerine collar and corsage of knotted blue ribbon, her brown hair dressed in ringlets and a bun

Ellen Werge, wearing blue dress with frilled white pelerine collar and corsage of knotted blue ribbon, her brown hair dressed in ringlets and a bun.
Watercolour on paper, signed on the obverse and dated Fυois Rochard 1834/ à Londres, wood frame, the reverse inscribed Lady Ellen Werge/ Wife of Captain Werge/ 39th Foot/ Dorsetshires.
Rectangular, 242mm (9 1/2in) high
Provenance: Larry Gayne Esq., 3 February 1982

Research reveals that Ellen Werge was the sister, not the wife (as per the inscription on the reverse of the present lot), of Captain Robert Dean Werge (see lot 192). She was the third child and eldest daughter of Oswald Werge and his wife, Ellen Dean, and was born in Bombay in 1811. Seemingly she never married but the 1871 Census lists her as 'visitor' at the Cumbria home of Mrs Sarah Strickland Gwillym, the sister of the famous writer and historian, Agnes Strickland.