Grace, Countess of Clanbrassil

Grace Hamilton, Countess of Clanbrass il, was an Irish aristocratic woman whose portrait Liotard painted in 1774, during what was likely his second English visit. By this date Liotard was in his seventies and had moved increasingly toward oil painting as his primary medium. The Kunsthaus Zürich holds the work, reflecting the ongoing dispersal of Liotard's British commissions into Swiss and continental collections over subsequent centuries. Aristocratic portraiture in Britain in the 1770s was dominated by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney, and the choice of an elderly Swiss-Genevan artist with an exotic reputation represents a deliberate alternative aesthetic. Liotard's late oil portraits share the uncompromising directness of his pastel work, though they are fewer in number and less studied by scholars. The Countess's portrait belongs to a small group of late English oils that testify to Liotard's sustained productivity into old age.

Oil on canvas in Liotard's late manner, which retains the precision of his pastel technique while achieving greater tonal depth through oil glazes. The flesh tones have a characteristic crystalline quality, and the dress is rendered with documentary attention to fabric texture and ornament.