Olivia Serres

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Stone House beneath the mountain , ca.1800

Olivia Serres , maiden name Olivia Wilmot (born April 3, 1772 in Warwick ; died November 21, 1834 in London ) was a British writer and painter. In addition to her artistic activities, she became known as the "Princess Olive of Cumberland" because she stubbornly claimed to be related to the British royal family.

life and work

Olivia grew up as the daughter of the painter Robert Wilmot in Warwick . Her father designed murals there for the Earl of Warwick , to whose family the Wilmots were distantly related. Olivia's uncle, Dr. James Wilmot, was a recognized scholar, with connections in the highest political circles. Olivia met her future father-in-law, the respected marine painter Dominic Serres , when he was visiting Warwick at the invitation of the Earl. The acquaintance with the respected artist made it easier for the family to move to London some time later , where Robert Wilmot opened a shop in Paddington . After discovering her own artistic talent there, Olivia became a student of Dominic Serres' son, John Thomas Serres , whom she married in 1791. Your uncle and groom , Dr. James Wilmot, recommended John Thomas Serres on this occasion to keep his wife busy: “keep her employed, or she will be plotting mischief”.

family

The couple moved to Portman Square in the City of Westminster, London . Their son John Dominick South was born there in 1793, and their first daughter Mary Estrella Olivia a year later. Olivia Serres had six more children, only two of whom reached adolescence. Lavinia Serres was born in Liverpool in 1797 , where the family lived briefly at the time. The youngest daughter, Britannia, was born in London in 1802. At this point the marriage was already in deep crisis. Olivia and John Thomas Serres divorced in 1805. The previous year, Olivia Serres had another child in the course of an extramarital affair.

Artistic creation

Olivia Serres has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and the British Institution several times . She has also published several poems, a play, a novel and a biography of her uncle. 1806 it was official landscape painter of the Prince of Wales , yet they often fell into financial difficulties and consequently sat in debtors' prison one.

"Princess Olive of Cumberland"

Olivia Serres

As a result of acquaintance with members of the royal family, Olivia Serres developed the idea of ​​being of royal descent herself and an illegitimate daughter of the British Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn . He secretly married her mother in 1767. In the year of her birth, the Duke - Olivia believes a bigamist - married Lady Anne Horton, which is considered the reason for the formulation of the Royal Marriages Act 1772 . She pursued her supposed claims more and more tenaciously with increasing age and thus brought her husband John Thomas Serres, who was a very respected and influential artist, into financial and social difficulties. This continued to have an effect even after the couple separated, so that John Thomas Serres was repeatedly imprisoned, hardly received any orders and was no longer received at court.

Olivia Serres made her statements public in 1817. After the death of King George III. Olivia Serres also increasingly stylized herself in public as the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Cumberland, designed her own coat of arms and let herself be driven through London in a carriage decorated with it. This behavior earned her the derisive nickname "Princess Olive of Cumberland". Meanwhile, Olivia had expanded the history of her origins. In a letter to the new King George IV , she stated that her own uncle, Dr. James Wilmot, who secretly married the sister of the Polish king. Her mother, who in turn is said to have married the brother of the British king "in the London house of a nobleman" in 1767, is the only child of this marriage. Olivia herself was handed over to Robert Wilmot a few days after the birth and raised by him and his wife as a child.

When Olivia Serres was arrested in 1821 as a result of her debts, she invoked her supposed royal parentage and declared that a princess should not be tried. Her allegations were first discussed in the British Parliament in 1823 and were called unfounded by Robert Peel . A year later, the Conservative MP Gerard Noel presented her information to parliament again as part of a petition but rejected it.

After her death, the claim to royal kinship was carried on into old age by Olivia Serres' daughter Lavinia, who married the portrait painter and author Antony Ryves. She used documents that turned out to be her mother's forgeries.

Works

  • St. Julian. Novel. 1805.
  • The Castle of Avola. Drama. 1805.
  • Flights of Fancy: Poems. Poetry book. 1806.
  • The Life of the Author of Junius's Letters The Reverend James Wilmot. Biography. 1808.

literature

Web links

Commons : Olivia Serres  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alan Russett: Dominic Serres War artist to the navy. Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge 2001, ISBN 1-85149-360-3 , pp. 201-205.
  2. ^ A b c Nicholas Tracy: Britannia's Palette The Art of Naval Victory. McGill-Queen's University Press, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7735-3113-0 , pp. 241-243.
  3. ^ Alan Russett: Dominic Serres War artist to the navy. Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge 2001, ISBN 1-85149-360-3 , p. 202.
personal data
SURNAME Serres, Olivia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilmot, Olivia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1772
PLACE OF BIRTH Warwick
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1834
Place of death London