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THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. (1727-1787) THE HON. FRANCES DUNCOMBE

FRANCES DUNCOMBE, daughter of Anthony Duncombe, Lord Feversham, Baron of Downton, Wilts. Born 12th Nov., 1757; married, 1778, John Bowater, eldest son of Edward Bowater, of Woolwich. She died in 1827 without issue.

By his third wife (1758) Lord Feversham had another daughter, Anne, who on Jan. 24, 1774, married Jacob, second Earl of Radnor. This painting has at various times been wrongly described as the portrait of Anne Duncombe, Countess of Radnor.

Frances Duncombe is here represented walking in a park and stepping toward the spectator, with her face turned three-quarters to the right, and hands crossed in front of her; in the right hand she holds her hat, trimmed with pearls and white plumes, and her left hand is toying with a string of pearls. Her light auburn, slightly powdered hair, dressed with pearls, is brushed back from the high forehead, and curly locks undulate gracefully over the shoulders. Her dress consists of a long blue satin train bordered with pearl embroidery and draped at the sides, showing a full view of a white satin underskirt richly ornamented with pearls. The low-cut corsage is adorned with strings of pearls and fastened with a large ruby and pearl jewel; she wears an Elizabethan lace collar, lace ruffles to the short three-quarter puffed sleeves, and white satin shoes with pearl fastenings.

This painting, once owned by the Earl of Chesterfield and later by Baron Lionel Rothschild and Chas. J Wertheimer, has had a romantic story which forms the subject of a chapter in W. P. Frith's "Autobiography and Reminiscences."

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