Mary Palmer, Marchioness of Thomond, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.

By descent in the family of the sitter to

Maria Anne Aylmer, née Gwatkin (b. 1821) (her name inscribed on the reverse of the canvas);

Thence by descent to her niece, Ethel Gertrude Hadow (1850-1939) (according to an old handwritten label on the reverse of the canvas);

Anonymous sale (‘From the Collection of Mrs Gwatkin’), London, Christie’s, 3 May 1940, lot 119 (as Mary Countess of Inchiquin, afterwards Marchioness of Thomond, after Reynolds);

Possibly acquired by Dom Domingos de Sousa e Holstein Beck, 5th Duque de Palmela (1897-1969), Portuguese ambassador in London 1943-1949;

Thence by descent to his son Dom Alexandre de Sousa e Holstein Beck, Visconde de Lançada (1934-2014);

Thence by descent to the present owner.

Edward James Eliot (1758-97) was an English Member of Parliament and Treasury minister during the government of Pitt the Younger from 1783. Lord Eliot was a close friend of Pitt, so much so that he married his niece Harriot Pitt in 1785. He was an activist and reformer, a firm believer in the abolition of the slave trade and promoter of prison reform and poor relief. Eliot was notably a close friend of the Reynolds family.

This portrait by Mary Palmer, Countess of Inchiquin and Marchioness of Thomond, niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds and an amateur painter herself, is an almost direct copy of Reynolds' original from 1781, still in the collection of the Trustees of the St. Germans Estate in Port Eliot, Cornwall.¹ Although her passion for art and her copying of Reynolds’ pictures is commonly acknowledged, no signed work by Mary Palmer is known. The inscription on the reverse of this unlined canvas, however, would appear to identify this painting as one securely by her hand.

Mary Palmer (1750-1820) was the eldest daughter of Mary Reynolds (1716-94), elder sister of Sir Joshua. She married the Irish peer, soldier and politician Murrough O'Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin, in 1792. The couple were created Marquis and Marchioness of Thomond in 1800 because of their support for the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Mary's younger sister, Theophila, was also an artist and both sisters modelled for their uncle on several occasions; see, for example, the portrait of Mary, by Reynolds, today at Fairfax House, York.² Mary was apparently Reynolds’ favourite niece, and became his chief beneficiary and heir - he bequeathed her nearly £100,000 in his will, and she also inherited his art collection.

Mary died without issue in 1820, when the remainder of Reynolds' collection was sold at auction. This painting appears to have passed to her sister, Theophila Gwatkin, née Palmer (1757-1848), thence to her son (Mary’s nephew), John Gwatkin (1786-1855), and then to his daughter (Mary’s great-niece), Maria Anna Aylmer, née Gwatkin (b. 1821), whose name appears in an inscription on the reverse of the canvas. 

¹ See D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds. A complete catalogue of his paintings, New Haven and London 2000, text vol., p. 179, cat. no. 571, reproduced plates vol., p. 520, fig. 1360.

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MaryPalmerByJoshuaReynolds.png