Portrait of a Lady with Mask and Cherries

An exercise in the style of Rembrandt, recalling his 'Saskia as Flora', 1634 in the Hermitage, St Petersburg. The catalogue of the Christie's sale, 22 January 1898 (lot 88) records a traditional identification of the sitter as Lady Anne Walpole (1733-97). She was one of the three daughters of Horatio, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton (1678-1757) and no portraits of her in her maturity are recorded. The face somewhat resembles that of her cousin Lady Mary Walpole (c.1725-1801), who married in 1745 the poet Charles Churchill) as seen in J.G. Eccardt's portrait in the Lewis Farmington Library, or in Benjamin Wilson's so-called 'Peg Woffington' in the Garrick Club.