Louisa Courtauld

Louisa Perina Courtauld (née Ogier; 1729 – 12 January 1807) was a French-born English silversmith.

Biography Cup and cover, 1771–1772 (hallmarked), Louisa Courtauld and George Cowles V&A Museum no. 804:1, 2-1890 She was the youngest daughter of Huguenots from Sigournay in Poitou, France. Louisa Courtauld and her family moved to London when she was young, the city in which she spent most of her career. Her family's home at 19 Princelet Street, a 'brick messuage' built in 1719, has been conserved as a museum of immigration and diversity.

At the age of 20 she married Samuel Courtauld, son of Augustin Courtauld, a metalsmith of Huguenot extraction. With him she had eight children, although only four survived, and their son George, apprenticed in 1761 to a silk throwster, began the link to the textile company Courtaulds.

Courtauld's firm was known for the high quality of its wares. She and her husband made their reputation with silver in the then-popular Rococo style from France. However, by the time of her partnership with Cowles, tastes had shifted towards Neoclassicism, and the company changed its output accordingly.

Courtauld's father-in-law Augustin Courtauld had studied with Simon Pantin, It is more probable that Nathaniel Dance-Holland painted this portrait. She was originally buried in the vault of Christ Church, Spitalfields, East London. However, following extensive archaeological excavation of the Spitalfields church crypt in the 1980s, prior to the church's restoration, her body was removed and examined. Her remains were reburied in Gosfield Church, Essex in 2002.