This week’s #rainbowsofhope colour is orange! The colours used by artists are not always what you might expect. At first glance, can you spot the orange in this sumptuous portrait of writer and actress Mary Robinson (1758-1800)?

Painted in the costume of her most famous role - Perdita in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale - the artist John Hoppner makes striking use of scarlet and navy tones for the background. These rich colours encourage us to focus on their opposites: Mary’s pale skin and rosy cheeks.

At the centre of this sensual depiction are her lips - painted in orange hues. Why did the artist choose this colour? Renowned for her beauty, Hoppner has used colours to make Mary appear more vibrant and alluring in paint, than she ever could have in real life. #rainbowsofhope

As well as being a renowned stage actress, Mary Robinson was a published novelist and poet, sometimes called the 'English Sappho'. She also wrote political tracts and considered herself of the same school as Mary Wollstonecraft #QuoteoftheDay

In her work 'A Letter to the Women of England on the Injustice of Mental Insubordination' (1799) Robinson was dedicated to honouring Wollstonecraft's memory, "whose genius posterity will render justice."

In this Robinson was correct, with Wollstonecraft now hailed as a matriarch of the feminist movement