Elizabeth Farren (nata circa 1759, morta nel 1829), poi contessa di Derby

Thomas Lawrence was 21 and barely known when he showed this at the Royal Academy in 1790. His sitter was already famous: Elizabeth Farren, an Irish actress and the reigning comic star of the London stage, painted here striding out of doors in white satin and fur, glancing back over her shoulder. The picture made the young painter's reputation almost overnight. Farren herself was less pleased. She thought Lawrence had made her look too thin, unfashionably so, and asked him to fill out the figure. Seven years later she left the stage to marry the Earl of Derby, moving from the playhouse into the aristocracy that had come to watch her. Lawrence would go on to paint most of the crowned heads of Europe.