Sold....portrait of Anna Maria, Baroness Dacre C.1740; Circle of Van Loo

Oil on canvas in a Late Georgian Neo-Classical gilt frame.

This portrait of the Baroness shows her in the State robes of a peeress and was probably painted on the occasion of her marriage.

ANNA MARIA PRATT was born before 1724 and died in 1806. She was the daughter of Sir John Pratt, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and Elizabeth Wilson; she was the sister of Charles, 1st Earl Camden.

Anna Maria married Thomas Barratt-Lennard, 17th Baron Dacre in London in 1739. They had one child, the Honourable Ann Barbara, who died aged nine.

Lord Dacre had a son out of marriage by Elizabeth FitzThomas; Thomas, later 1st Baronet, was born in 1762 and was brought up by Lord and Lady Dacre and treated as if he had been the legitimate offspring of their marriage. Anna Maria acted as a mother, and as an exceptionally good mother too. Knowing she could have no more children, she connived at this intrigue for her husband's sake as he was anxious to have a son to whom he might leave the family estates.

The boy was given the education and upbringing that would prepare him to assume the rank and status of the Barrett Lennard family. Lord Dacre died in 1786 and in his will he asked his wife to 'take upon herself the guardianship of his child, who he directed was to assume the names of Barrett and Lennard and the arms and crests belonging to those families'. This she did.

JEAN-BAPTISTE VAN LOO (1694 - 1745) was born in Aix-en-Provence; he worked in the south of France, Turin, Rome and Paris.

He came to England in 1737 where he became immensely successful and fashionable, much to the annoyance of the native born English portraitists.

His Continental style was considered smart and his manners and manner appealed to the upper classes.

SIZE: 38 x 32.5 inches inc. frame.

PROVENANCE: From the Estate of Brigadier Sir Edward Ford KCB, GCVO [1910-2006] (Asst. Private Secretary to King George VI 1946-52)

According to family tradition, sold from Mrs. Fitzherbert's house near the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, c.1840, where it was acquired by the great-great-great-grandfather of the previous owner (as the sitter was a family member) and thence by descent to Henry Robert, 2nd Viscount Hampden and 24th Baron Dacre, then to his son Robert Brand, 1st Baron Brand, then to his daughter the Hon. Virginia Brand, wife of Sir Edward Ford.

NOTE: Maria Anne Fitzherbert, née Smythe (26 July 1756 – 27 March 1837), married the Prince Regent, future King George IV, in a secret ceremony, and was his companion for a large part of his adult life. However the marriage was invalid under English laws concerning royal marriages and she never became Queen or acquired any other title. For political reasons George was made to marry Caroline of Brunswick; it was an unhappy marriage.