Attributed to Mather Brown

Private collection, United Kingdom or Australia;

Thence by descent to a private collector, France;

Thence by descent to the present collector.

This refined portrait, perhaps by Mather Brown, reflects the transatlantic idiom cultivated by a generation of American painters active in London in the late eighteenth century. A pupil of Gilbert Stuart and student of Benjamin West, Brown absorbed the prevailing British Grand Manner while maintaining a sensitivity to likeness and restraint that aligns closely with his portraits of the 1780s and 1790s. The sitter is presented with understated elegance: powdered curls frame her face, offset by a sheer fichu and a lustrous blue silk dress, details that speak to both contemporary fashion and the cosmopolitan ambitions of American artists seeking recognition on an international stage.