CIRCLE OF GEORGE ROMNEY (DALTON-IN-FURNESS 1734-1802 KENDAL)

The present portrait has always been identified as Sophia, Countess Poulett. The daughter of Admiral Sir George Pocock and Sophia Dent, she married John Poulett, 4th Earl Poulett in 1782, and went on to have ten children. However, Sophia pre-deceased her husband, meaning that the later inscription on the portrait is either a historical misnomer or that this is not, in fact, Sophia but Mary, her mother-in-law. Mary, who had married Vere, 3rd Earl Poulett in 1755, outlived her husband by thirty-one years, during which time she was styled 'Dowager Countess Poulett'.