A Paris (Boyer) porcelain green-ground table service, mid-19th century

This grand French porcelain service, bearing an earl or countess's coronet and the monogram 'FW', possibly belonged to the society heiress Frances Elizabeth Anne Waldegrave, Countess Waldegrave (1821–1879), the daughter of John Braham, the noted tenor. In 1839, she married John James Waldegrave, illegitimate son of John Waldegrave, 6th Earl Waldegrave, who died in the same year. In 1840, she married his younger legitimate brother, George Edward, 7th Earl Waldegrave. Upon his death in 1846, she inherited the whole of the Waldegrave estates, including Strawberry Hill House, which had been left to her by her second husband, whose father had inherited it from Horace Walpole. After her third marriage, in 1847, to George Granville Harcourt of Nuneham and Stanton Harcourt, Frances restored Strawberry Hill House which became a convenient meeting place for the political and diplomatic society of London. After the death of Harcourt in 1861, Strawberry Hill became her principal residence. In 1863, Frances married Chichester Samuel Parkinson Fortescue (later Lord Carlingford), and from that time until her death her abilities, as well as her fortune, were devoted to the success of his political career and of his Liberal Party. Her salon at Strawberry Hill or at her residence in London at 7, Carlton Gardens, became one of the chief meeting-places of the Liberal leaders.