Sir Joshua Reynolds, P. R. A. (Plympton, Devon 1723-1792 London)

The sitter was the daughter of Henry Vansittart (1732-?1770) and his wife Emilia, daughter of John Morse, Governor of Madras. Her father, who sat to Reynolds on several occasions (Mannings lists four portraits: two from c. 1753-54 and another further two from 1767-69), served as Governor of Bengal from 1760-64 before drowning in the wreck of the frigate Aurora. Emilia was brought up at Foxley’s Manor in Bray, Berkshire, and later married Edward Parry of Little Dunham, Norfolk, who served in the Bengal Civil Service and with whom she had one daughter. Reynolds’s ‘Pocket Books’ (his sitter books) record ten sittings with Miss Vansittart between September and November 1767. Emilia’s brother Robert scored the first recorded century (102) in India for the Old Etonians against the Rest of Calcutta in 1804. Her youngest brother, Nicholas, later 1st Baron Bexley, was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1812-1823.

The present picture is an autograph version of the work that descended through the sitter's daughter's family until it was sold Christie's, London, 18 March 1968, lot 68 (Private collection, U.S.A.).