Harriet, Viscountess Tracy (circa 1722-1795)

The sitter was a member of the Bathurst family who dominated West Country politics in the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1755 she married Thomas Charles Tracy who, shortly afterwards inherited the title of 6th Viscount Tracy from his father. The family seat was the Elizabethan mansion Toddington Manor in Gloucestershire, which was demolished in the early-nineteenth century. The posture for this portrait is based on the figure of Lady Mary Villiers in the important family portrait of The Pembroke Family by Van Dyck at Wilton House, near Salisbury. As well as the pose, the crisp hard folds of the drapery in the portrait are also similar to the Flemish master’s handling of paint. An X-ray revealed that the viscountess’s black choker is covering a row of pearls.

Purchased with an anonymous donation made through the National Art Collection Fund and Gainsborough's House Society Development Trust and grants from the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the National Art Collections Fund, February 1992.