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The intimate scale of this work is very unusual within Smart’s oeuvre and is a poignant reminder of the personal nature of portrait miniatures.

The sitter is probably Lady Lucy Douglas, daughter of William Graham, 2nd Duke of Montrose (1712-1790) and Lucy Manners (c.1717-1788), who, on 13th June 1771, married Archibald Douglas, 1st Baron Douglas (1748-1827). Lucy died in 1780 at Bothwell Castle aged twenty-nine, leaving two sons and a daughter, and Douglas then married Lucy’s close friend Lady Frances Scott (1750-1817), daughter of Francis Scott, Earl of Dalkeith (1720-1750).

In 1771, the year of her marriage, Lucy was painted in pastels by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, and the present work, which shows the sitter with a slightly fuller-face, was probably painted not long after.

The wife of Lucy’s cousin Lord George Manners-Sutton was also painted by Smart, as well as a number of other Scottish peers relations including Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton (c.1732-1774) and his younger half-brother the Hon. John Douglas.