Samuel Shelley (1756-1808) was particularly celebrated for his portraits of ladies and children and this double portrait of a mother and child in a romanticised setting with red drapes and a hint of a garden landscape richly shows why Shelley became one of the most fashionable miniaturists of his day. He loved to experiment with group portraiture and with backgrounds. This portrait was completed towards the end of his career in 1807 and depicts Mrs Harper in an empire-line dress and cornflower blue wrap seated with her eldest daughter wearing a pretty lace cap and coral necklace. Given the young age of the child, it would surely have been a challenging sitting for the artist.The eldest daughter of Thomas Hinckley, Catharine was born in Lichfield in 1779. She married Robert John Harper of the Duchy of Lancaster Office in 1802. Born in 1807, the year of this portrait, Catherine Anne was their first daughter. The poet Anna Seward dedicated a poem to ''Little Catherine Harper Aged Thre...