Miss Catherine Hayes – from a Portrait by A. Salome 1849

Courtesy of the Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection -London

Catherine or Kate Hayes is the principal subject of ‘Virtue and Vice’ to be published by Suir Vista later in 2008. This portrait of her is one of the very few that can be said to be based on original art work although the location of the original by A. Salome remains unknown. Several altered copies and mirror images of this picture are to be found in various collections. This is the oldest dated that the author can find.

There was a portrait painter called Anthony Salome who studied in Munich and practised in London in 1849. His painting of Tyutchev’s daughters is in the Tyutchev State Museum at Muranovo near Moscow.

It seems therefore that we can be reasonably sure that this is a good likeness of Catherine Hayes in 1849 when she was at the height of her fame. She sang at Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria on 1st June 1849.

All rights reserved: TA Hayes 2008

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