Portrait of Henrietta Edgcumbe

In January 1759 Reynolds wrote an appointment in his book for Mrs Day, and next to her, simply, Miss. The girl was Henrietta, then about six, and Mrs Day was her mother, Ann Franks, who went by the name Day. Henrietta's father was Richard Edgcumbe, a Cornish lord, member of Parliament and close friend of the writer Horace Walpole. He never married Ann, though they had four children together, and the portrait was probably painted for him. A month later he was made Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall. He died unmarried in 1761, leaving Walpole as trustee for Ann, and the next year she married Sir Peter Fenoulhet. The portrait went to Henrietta herself. In 1770 she married a Frenchman, Charles de Prades Lavalette, and she spent the rest of her life between London and Calais.