Anne Vansittart, Lady Palk

Reynolds's records list this sitter under two names. When the sittings began she was Miss Vansittart, and by the time the portrait was finished she was Mrs Palk. On the 7th of February 1761 Anne Vansittart, then about 23, married Robert Palk, a former chaplain 20 years older who had made his money in India in the service of the East India Company. Her brother Henry was governor of Bengal. Palk had come home and given up holy orders, and the portrait belongs to the few months the couple spent in England after the wedding. In October he sailed back to India, and in 1763 he became governor of Madras. The title Lady Palk came only in 1782, when he was made a baronet. The canvas later hung at Haldon House, the family's estate in Devon, until the collection there was broken up around 1891, and in 1895 the museum bought it for 5,000 dollars.