Lady Margaret Cavendish-Harley, Duchess of Portland (1715-1785)
after Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1659 - London 1743)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1730 - 1785
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
521 x 419 mm (20 1/2 x 16 1/2 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1129208
Caption
Lady Margaret Cavendish-Holles-Harley, Duchess of Portland was the daughter of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford (1689-1741). She married, in 1734, William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland (d.1762), with whom she had a son, William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (d.1809). It was he who married Lady Dorothy Cavendish (d.1794), the only daughter of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire (1720-1764). This portrait is copied from a full-length of her as a shepherdess, formerly at Welbeck Abbey. It was painted at about the age when she was celebrated by Matthew Prior as ‘my noble, lovely little Peggy’. The label perpetuates an old error about the identity of the sitter as the Marchioness of Hartington.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Margaret Cavendish-Harley, Duchess of Portland (1715-1785), after Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1656/9 – London 1743). A head-and-shoulders portrait of a young girl, turned slightly to the left, head inclined to the right, gazing at the spectator, wearing white dress and black velvet hat with rose.
Provenance
In 1817 catalogue; by descent until, following the death of Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire (1895 - 1950), Hardwick Hall and its contents were accepted by HM Treasury in part payment of death duties and transferred to the National Trust, in 1959
Makers and roles
after Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1659 - London 1743), artist