Bought by Sir John Fleming, later Baron de Tabley, in 1796, and at Tabley until 1825, and thence by descent to Lord de Tabley, by 1857 until 1884, and thence by descent to C. Leicester Warren, Tabley House; Christie''s, 20 May 1927, lot 39 to Knoedler, New York, who sold it in 1928 to William Randolph Hearst, and given before 1933 to Marion Davies, until 1947, when given to The Los Angeles County Museum of Art until deaccessioned in 1990.
W Corey, ''Catalogue'' 1819, p.76 Young, ''Catalogue of Pictures by British Artists in the Possession of Sir John Fleming Leicester, Bt.1, no.25 J Romney, ''Memoirs'', 1830,p.181 H Ward and W Roberts, ''Romney'' 1904, II,p.
Manchester, ''Art Treasures Exhibition'', 1857, no.83. London, Royal Academy, ''Winter Exhibition'', 1884, no.211 San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honour, ''Loan Exhibition of English Painting'', no.54.
This portrait of Emma Hamilton as a bacchante, half length, in a white dress with a blue sash and a crown of Laurel leaves, against a background showing Vesuvius erupting.