Elizabeth Kerr, Marchioness of Lothian

Reynolds's portrait of Elizabeth Kerr, Marchioness of Lothian from 1769, now in the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, depicts a Scottish noblewoman in the standard three-quarter female portrait format that Reynolds had refined to its most assured expression by the late 1760s. The Museo Soumaya's holding of this work in Mexico City is a striking example of the geographic dispersal of British aristocratic portraits — works that were made for specific great houses, sold off in the nineteenth or twentieth century through changing economic fortunes, and acquired by American and international collectors who valued their quality regardless of their original social context. Elizabeth Kerr was the wife of William Kerr, 4th Marquess of Lothian, and her portrait by Reynolds would have originally hung at Newbattle Abbey near Edinburgh, one of the great Border houses. The painting's migration to Mexico, via European and American salerooms, tells a story about the global movement of European old masters that Reynolds himself could never have anticipated.

Reynolds renders the Marchioness with his characteristic combination of warm palette and soft, blended technique. The elegant pose and the careful rendering of silk and lace create an image of aristocratic refinement within the grand-manner portrait tradition.