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GEORGE ROMNEY ( 1734-1802) HERIETTA, COUNTESS OF WARWICK, AND HER TWO CHILDREN

  Canvas, 60 inches by 78 inches

HERIETTA VERNON, who eloped with George, second Earl of Warwick, in 1776, when she was sixteen and he a widower of thirty, was the eldest daughter of Richard Vernon, known in his day as the father of the turf and as "Jubilee Dickey." She and her sisters were noted beauties and were celebrated in verse by Horace Walpole. They were known as "The Three Graces," and in the literary gossip of their day frequent reference is made to them. Lady Warwick in particular is extolled for "her amiable sweetness and gentleness," and her life was one of serene uneventfulness. She bore her husband nine children, some of whom were distinguished.

  Of the eldest son, who became third Earl of Warwick, and who is the boy of this portrait,  it was written of him after he attained manhood,  that he had " evinced a predominant taste for chymistry," and that he invented and patented a soap for the navy "that will not curdle in salt water."  He appears, however, to have been "extravagant and speculative," and to have so seriously impaired the family fortune that the latter part of his life "was spent on penury, mortification  and wretchedness."
  The little girl of the portrait  was the Countess's third child, Elizabeth,  who died on January  1806.
  The Countess herself died in 1838, having survived her husband twenty-two years 
  The painting, made in 1787-1788, has been extensively reproduced,  frequently described,  and exhibited at the British Institute,  South Kensington, Burlington House, the Grafton Gallery,  and in Boston and New York.  It was previously owned  by the Earl of Warwick,  Warwick Castle.
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