Anne, 2nd Countess of Albemarle

By the time Reynolds finished this in 1760, the sitter was close to 60 and a widow. Lady Albemarle had raised a large family, and of her many children only six lived to grow up. Here she is doing something an elderly gentlewoman of Georgian London did to pass an afternoon. The little ivory tool in her hands is a shuttle for knotting, making small decorative knots in thread that would later be sewn onto cloth. Look closely and there is not one knot in the thread yet. She sat for Reynolds 11 times over nearly two years, and the painter, then the most sought-after in London, waited another 12 years to be paid. Time has changed her too. The red pigment in her skin has faded in the light, so the face that was once warm now reads almost chalk-white against the black silk.