Portrait of Nelly O'Brien

Nelly O'Brien was one of the best-known courtesans in 1760s London, mistress to a run of aristocrats. Reynolds painted her more than once, and the bills were paid by her lover, Viscount Bolingbroke. He gave her the calm, respectable treatment he used for duchesses: seated in the sunshine in striped silk, direct and self-possessed, the soft light falling through a straw hat onto her face. His sitter-books show her coming to the studio over and over. She did not have long. She died in 1768, only a few years after this was painted, still young.