George Romney was instantly enamored upon meeting Emma Hart.

The scandalous mistress inspired hundreds of paintings and studies by the artist until the scheming of a scumbug lover sent her away.

Emma Hart was one of the most intriguing figures of her day; gossip about her was widespread making it difficult to separate fact from scandalous embellishments. Depending on the biography you read she was either a housemaid or a prostitute. Others assert that there’s no evidence she actually was a prostitute, but an often repeated story is that she danced naked on a table for a group of young aristocrats which led to the start of her romantic troubles.

She was originally Amy Lyon, later on adopting the name Emma. Being born as the daughter of a blacksmith severely limited her prospects and she grew up in poverty. The story goes that she was such an unusual beauty she stood out to any who saw her and, after her scandalous dance, one of the men in attendance took her as a lover. When she told him she was pregnant, he showed his lack of character by tossing her aside.

His friend, Charles Greville, who had also attended the party and spoke of his affection for Lyon took her under his wing. A condition of her new life as a live-in mistress was giving her daughter to the care of her grandmother. Greville started molding Lyon into his ideal woman, and she started going by the name Emma Hart. He educated her in language, proper manners, etc. Basically everything he thought necessary for her to be a refined piece of arm candy. Emma went along with all of this because she wanted to be a part of high society and based on her letters at the time, she was deeply in love with him.

Greville did not share Emma’s feelings, at least not to the same degree. His attachment to her seems closer to a sense of ownership than love. No one ever thought to tell him training someone to be an entirely different person is about as unhealthy as a relationship can get. But the cherry on top of the emotionally abusive sundae was how he ended it.

He wanted to live a life of higher means, but his dwindling funds were holding him back. First, he began having Emma sit in as a model for artists as a way of making money. This was how she met Romney and captured his fascination with both her beauty and her ability to take on various poses and expressions at ease.

For the next four years, she posed for Romney and they developed a close friendship. But unlike the relationship of Romaine Brooks and Ida Rubenstein, there is no evidence that the love Romney felt for Emma ever went beyond idealizing her as a perfect muse. Also Greville was known to be possessive and would likely have stopped letting her model for him if he suspected anything. Greville had no problem with other men admiring Emma, though. He apparently delighted in other men chasing after Emma and bragged to his uncle of how many offers of courtships she would refuse in order to stay with him.

This painting of Emma as Circe is among the first that Romney ever did of her, this was a preliminary painting for his full length Circe piece. Critics praised Circe despite the fact that Romney never actually finished it. He intended to add in animals, presumably former humans fallen victim to Circe, but never found the right animal models, time to paint them, or another artist to do it. Romney held onto the painting at Greville’s request to buy it but as Greville was racking up a debt with the artist by commissioning a number of paintings of Emma that he couldn’t pay for, Romney eventually sold the piece to someone else. The buyer of the unfinished piece decided to finish the painting himself and added in a leopard and two wolves. The leopard has been removed but the weirdly out of place wolves linger in the frame.

Depicting women of high society as Greek mythological figures was a popular trend in the 18th century. Take Nattier's painting Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, for example. But Romney did not limit his paintings of Emma to a singular theme; he painted her as everything from Joan of Arc to Bacchante, even doing a number of works inspired by Shakespeare. After she moved away from Romney, Emma went on to utilize the “attitudes” she had developed while doing various poses and characters for him in the form of a stage performance that became quite popular.

Romney lost his muse due to Greville’s scheming. Greville had decided that marrying a wealthy woman would solve his money problems. But the wealthy woman in question had no interest in a man currently housing a mistress. So Greville arranged for his uncle to take Emma off his hands. His uncle, Lord Hamilton, was a collector of fine arts and beautiful objects, and was already enamored with Emma after seeing portraits of her. Not satisfied with simply pawning her off, Greville suggested that his uncle buy all of the portraits he had commissioned of Emma to further kindle his interest in her and relieve him of his debts. On top of that, he asked to be named his heir in exchange and Lord Hamilton agreed.

Of course, Emma was not informed of any of this. Greville suggested she go to Italy and stay with his uncle to study music for a few months and promised he would later join her. It didn’t take long for Emma to catch on after she arrived at Lord Hamilton’s manor. She wrote Greville a multitude of letters and he responded to her pleading and confessions of love with silence.

But an unexpected twist happened - Hamilton and Emma actually grew very close. Hamilton forgot about making her his mistress and married her years later giving her the title Lady Hamilton. Thanks to Hamilton’s introductions, Emma became well known among Italian high society, even becoming close with Marie Antoniette’s sister Maria Carolina of Austria. She gained even more popularity with her aforementioned “attitude” performances.

Years into their marriage, after the initial romance had faded and Emma began her famous love affair with Lord Nelson, she still held Hamilton in high regard as a very dear friend. It’s also possible that Greville had intended to get Emma back at some point after getting married, but well, karma. His intended bride passed on him and he never married.

Six years after Emma had left for Naples she had one last sit in with Romney, during which he compiled many studies of her and drew her image so much that he continued to create portraits of her from memory long after her visit.