English: Henrietta Diana was the daughter and heiress of London economist and banker Richard Cantillon, who was murdered in London in 1734. In July 1743 she married William Mathias Howard, 3rd Earl of Stafford. Widowed in 1751, she married Robert Maxwell (c.1720-79) in London in October 1759; he became 2nd Baron Farnham in December that year, Viscount Farnham in 1760 and Earl of Farnham in 1763. This painting, purchased by the Trustees of the Hamilton Bequest in 1955, is probably a marriage portrait. She died only two years later on 30 August 1761, aged 33, leaving a daughter, Henrietta Maxwell, who inherited this painting.

Writer and collector Horace Walpole, comparing Joshua Reynolds and Ramsay in letter to David Dalrymple in 1759 wrote: ‘The former is bold, and has a kind of tempestuous colouring […] the latter is all delicacy. Mr Reynolds seldom succeeds in women: Mr Ramsay is formed to paint them.’ This portrait is an example of Ramsay’s mature style, graceful, elegant and refined. 1754-1766 saw a new lively naturalism of pose and relaxed attitude in his work. The delicacy of colouring and intimacy of expression points to the influence of French pastelists such as Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788), portraitist to Louis XV.

Seated on a blue sofa in front of a green curtain, Henrietta Diana’s hair is powdered and curled hair in a têt-de-mouton or ‘sheep’s head’ style, with a headdress of pompon lace and red silk ribbons, pinned to a small cap with looped-up lappets. She wears an open cinnamon-brown silk gown with fur trimmings and delicate lace sleeves. She holds a fur muff, symbolic of her wealth and status. Muffs and furs were not just for outdoor wear, as suggested by the purely decorative fur trimmings and fur necklace worn here, but were a playful nod to the exotic fur-trimmed costumes of Russia and central Europe. Often impregnated with scent, large muffs acted like handbags with pockets inside for toiletry items. Some women were even known to carry small dogs in their muffs.