Paintings in the Collection of Henry Clay Frick, 1915 [page 79]

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WILLIAM HOGARTH (1679-1764) MISS MARY EDWARDS Canvas, 373/8 inches by 493/8 inches THREE-QUAARTER LENGTH, seated, left hand lightly touching the head of a retriever, right arm resting on a table, red dress with low lace-trimmed corsage. Jeweled cross and elaborate pendants hang from a string of pearls around the neck. Over the head a lace mantilla-like shawl. On the table a large open scroll, containing a poem, appealing to Englishmen to cherish the laws, rights and liberties "delivered down" to them "from age to age by their renowned forefathers." Mary Edwards, whose strong personality is so vividly portrayed by Hogarth in this portrait, was one of the most interesting women of her time. A great heiress, she was clandestinely married to a fortune-hunter, but saved her estate for her son by the heroic recourse of repudiating her marriage and declaring her, child illegitimate. She was a daughter of Francis Edwards, Esq, and Anna Margarette Vernatti, his wife. Born 1705, she married Lord Anne Hamilton in 1731, and died 1743. Her only son, Gerald Anne Edwards, of Welham Grove, Co. Leiicester, married Jane, daughter of Baptist Noel, fourth Earl of Gainsborough. BY royal license in 1798, their son, Gerard Noel Edwards, assumed the surname and arms of Noel, and subsequently succeeded to his father-in-law's baronetcy as Sir Gerald Noel Noel. In 1841 Charles Noel, descendant of the foregoing, was created Earl of Gainsborough. Hogarth's "Taste in High Life" was painted for Miss Edwards. The portrait is from the collection of Col. W. F. N. Noel, of Stardens, Newent, Gloucestershire. 79 LE

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