A Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Ottoman dress, English School, 18th/19th century

Oil on canvas, depicting a female figure wearing a blue dress decorated with stars and crescent moons, framed

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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was an English aristocrat and writer, who is remembered for the letters she wrote whilst living in Turkey as the wife of Edward Wortley Montagu, the British Ambassador. A prominent society figure in England, she counted among her friends Alexander Pope, John Gay and the Paduan philosopher Abbé Antonio Conti.

Her Turkish Embassy Letters describe the two years she spent in Turkey and contain many observations, drawing particular attention to the fact that they presented a different description than that provided by previous male travellers. Indeed Lady Mary asserted that her observations were more accurate, as she had the ability to access private homes and spaces where men were not permitted. As such, Lady Mary's letters were greatly influential for later generations of European women travelling to the East.

Lady Mary Wortley returned to England having gained a knowledge of the Ottoman practice of inoculation against smallpox (known as viriolation), and was praised in 1754 for introducing the idea to Britain before Edward Jenner developed a safer method of vaccination.

The present work depicts a young Lady Mary in Ottoman-style dress, and is among numerous portraits of the aristocratic writer. She was painted by Charles Jervas as a sherpherdess in 1710, by Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1715 and in 1722, and also by Jean-Baptiste Vanmour, Jonathan Richardson and Carlo Francesco Rusco. For a further painting of 'Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Turkish Dress', attributed to Charles Philips, see C. Pick (ed.), Embassy to Constantinople, London, 1988, p.38.