Circle of Charles Jervas (Dublin c. 1675-1739 London)

The poet Matthew Prior (1664-1721) composed his well-known poem The Female Phaeton: upon Lady Kitty Hyde's First Appearing in Publick and in 1720 Katherine married her second cousin Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry and 2nd Duke of Dover (1698-1778). Guests at their London residence, Queensberry House, included Handel, Pope, Prior, the architect William Kent and the playwright John Gay. Katherine was most famously painted by Charles Jervas, dressed as a milk-maid (National Portrait Gallery, London). She died in 1777 due to an illness caused by a 'surfeit of cherries', according to Horace Walpole.