Holly Davey
Dolbadarn Castle by Richard Wilson, 1760 – 65.
In this new commission by Holly Davey responding to the title of this year’s Festival ‘What You See Is What You Get’, the painting by Richard Wilson has become a metaphor for the question: Do we really get what we see? And how does an image speak to the truth?
For lying beneath Richard Wilson’s Dolbadarn Castle, 1760 – 65, is a portrait of a woman, thought to be Miss Jenkins? The original painting of Miss Jenkins? was painted sometime before Dolbadarn Castle. However, Wilson painted over the top of her portrait, turning her from vertical to horizontal, then using the curve of her body, she becomes the landscape. Not only does this action of removal eradicate her from her own story but makes her identity lost from the record across time, until there is no one to remember her, not even to know her name.
This collaboration between the two paintings speaks to a number of ideas. Firstly, how we gain knowledge from an image about our understanding of being in the world. Secondly, the representation of women within history and finally, our understanding of reality and truth within collection and archival spaces.
Quietly hidden in plain sight for over three hundred and forty years, Miss Jenkins? remained until the painting revealed its secret. She occupies Gallery 4, Art in the Eighteenth Century, unseen by the viewer, she is a shadow to herself. She sits alongside Gainsborough and Reynolds, unnoticed and representing all the unseen and unheard women’s voices through history. Past. Present. Future.
As a celebration of women within the collection and the combination of Wilson’s two paintings that encourage us to think about what we are actually looking at and question our reality, the conservation x-ray’s depicting the original portrait of Miss Jenkins? will hang in place of Dolbadarn Castle in Gallery 4.
Lying on her side, she will inhabit the gallery, visible for the first time to the audience, to enable us to reflect on what else is unknown to us, hidden from view, pushed to the edges of our knowledge.
Background and Research
Due to the advancement of painting conservation technology, artworks are able to be scanned; x-rayed; pigments analysed; enabling a deeper understanding of artworks and how they were produced to be gained.
As part of this process, and with new approaches in conservation research, Richard Wilson’s, Dolbardan Castle was x-rayed in 2001. This was a difficult process as technology at the time meant only an A4 size x-ray could be made into a low-resolution digital image. So, the painting was divided up into a grid made up of 25 sections. Each section was x-rayed. These x-rays slowly revealed that there was another painting underneath. Once the x-rays were laid out on a large light box, the portrait of a woman was seen for the first time in over 240 years.
Due to the advancement in technology, the x-rays have been now been rescanned.
Rescanning of original x-rays by museum photographer, Robin Maggs, 2024.
Redigitising of original x-rays by museum photographer, Robin Maggs, 2024.
Screen shot of all twenty – five redigitised x-rays, 2024
Once redigitised, they have been digitally restitched together via Photoshop to create the image of the x-rayed version of her. The original painting still exists but is hidden by the landscape painted over the top. The restitched twenty-five x-rays create the portrait painting underneath.
Configuration of twenty-five x-rays that form the image, digitally stitched together by museum photographer, Robin Maggs, 2024.
But who is she?
It is unknown who the woman in the portrait is but there are some clues. From online research, reading books about Richard Wilson and conversations with the museum conservators both past and present, there are some thoughts that she could be the unpaid commission of Miss Jenkins (1736 – 1810). A letter from 1750 sent by Wilson’s sister, to Admiral Thomas Smith discusses an unpaid commission by Mr Harris.
If she is Miss Jenkins, then her sister Mary, a portrait painted by Wilson sits in the same gallery to the left of this work. We will never know who she is for sure, but she embodies all the unseen, unheard, unknown voices with archive and collection spaces.
And Dolbadarn Castle?
This painting now hangs behind you above the entrance to the Gallery 4. Both artworks by Richard Wilson occupy the same space for the first time.
Many thanks to:
Director, Siân Addicott and the team at Ffoto Cymru.
Senior Curator of Photography, Bronwen Colquhoun, and Chief Conservator Art, Adam Webster and the team at National Museum Wales including Senior Technician, Lee Jones and Museum Photographer, Robin Maggs for in-house technical support.
Interdisciplinary artist, Marc Rees who led an R&D grant funded by The Colwinston Charitable Trust and supported by WMC which enabled me to encounter the original x-rays.
Kate Lowry, previous conservator at National Museum Wales.
Genesis Imaging.
Rich Robinson for his love and support throughout the commission.
Opening Hours
Tuesday - Sunday, 10am - 4pm. This work will remain on display until further notice.
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Holly Davey is a visual artist based in Cardiff. Central in Holly’s practice are ideas surrounding absence, place & the body. Working predominantly with collections and archives - with a focus on marginalised women's voices within these spaces - she produces installation works that include photography, sculpture, text, video and performance.
Recent exhibitions include A Script for an Archive: Women, University of Dundee, (2022); A Script for an Archive, Chapter, Cardiff, (2021); Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London, (2020); and The British School of Rome, (2019); as well as in 2018, The Conversation, g39, Cardiff, and The Hardwick Gallery, Cheltenham Spa. Holly has taken part in residencies both national and international, and several commissions at heritage settings including The Holbourne Museum, Bath; A La Ronde, Exeter; Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery; and National Museum Wales.
In 2019, Holly was the Creative Wales Fellow at The British School at Rome, and in 2022 was nominated for a Paul Hamlyn Award.