British School, circa 1750

By descent to the present owner.

A label on the reverse of this painting identifies the sitter as Miss Jane Woode (1727–1790), daughter of Thomas Woode of Bracon Ash, Norfolk. Jane is recorded to have married Knipe Gobbet (d. 1791), Mayor of Norwich, Sheriff of Norwich, and later Lieutenant-Colonel in the West Norfolk Regiment. A memorial stone in the Church of All Saints, Tacolneston, Norfolk, records that they had one son 'who died of the small-pox by inoculation' in 1762'. There are also records of several daughters, the majority of whom were schooled by nuns in the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, Paris. Another daughter, called Anne, is recorded to have married a Dr. Compton of London and is mentioned in the correspondence and diaries of the Honourable Lady Jerningham (1780–1843).¹

¹ J. Gillow and R. Trappes-Lomax (eds), The diary of the "Blue nuns" or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, at Paris, 1658–1810, London 1910, p. 359.