Woman in bed by Matthew William Peters (1742-1814). Titian, Reynolds, and a pictorial revenge

After a stay in Venice and Rome between 1776 and 1779, the painter Matthew William Peters (1742-1814) rekindled his career in England by painting erotic pictures of women. Immediately after his return from Italy in 1776, Peters painted Woman in Bed for Edward Lloyd Richard Grosvenor, 1st Earl Grosvenor (1731– 1802). This article argues that Lord Grosvenor commissioned Peters' Woman in Bed in response to the adultery trial in order to restore his honour as libertine. Challenging both, a classical and a modern British authority (Titian and Reynolds, respectively), Peters simultaneously developed a pictorial encounter with Italy, a "modern" British response to the Italian tradition and a form of pictorial revenge for the patron.