(Plympton 1723–1792 London)
Portrait of Margaret Scott (1740–1806), later Lady Montgomery, in a white dress,
oil on canvas, 76.5 x 63 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of F. Dent;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 15 November 1959, lot 105;
with Newhouse Galleries, New York;
Collection of Harold Zellerbach (1894–1978);
gifted by him in 1970 to the Palace of the Legion of Honour, San Francisco;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 7 June 2006, lot 162;
Private collection, France

The present portrait of a noblewoman, wearing a courtly robe of fine blue velvet, trimmed with ermine, is a typically refined work by the English School’s greatest practitioner Sir Joshua Reynolds. The sitter has been identified as Margaret Scott, later Lady Montgomery, the wife of Sir James Montgomery (1721–1803). Reynolds kept a Sitters’ Book, in which in February 1759 several sittings by a ‘Lady Scott’ are recorded, thus giving us a likely date of execution for the present work.

Joshua Reynolds filtered the brilliance of the great Italian masters, such as Raphael, Michelangelo, Correggio and Titian, through his own artistic sensibilities, creating a unique style that is instantly recognisable. Born to humble origins, the son of a Plymouth schoolmaster, a chance introduction to Commodore Augustus Keppel, RN, enabled a formative voyage to Italy upon Keppel’s flagship, the HMS Centurion, allowing a sort of ‘poor man’s Grand Tour’ to the young painter. On his return to England in 1752 he rapidly established himself as a leading portraitist. The hallmarks of graceful poise and insinuations of power with which he imbued his sitters is on display in the present work.