Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh, with her daughter Elisabeth Laura

Reynolds's portrait of Maria Walpole with her daughter from 1761 depicts the Duchess of Gloucester in a maternal composition that subtly evokes the Madonna and Child tradition without overtly religious reference. Maria Walpole was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole and niece of Horace Walpole; her secret marriage to Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, in 1766 caused a constitutional crisis that led directly to the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. At the time of the portrait she was not yet married to the Duke, and Reynolds depicts her as a young aristocratic mother in the elevated style he would later bring to his maternal compositions involving members of the royal family. The Condé Museum at Chantilly holds this canvas as part of the broad representation of British eighteenth-century portraiture in major French collections. Reynolds's maternal portraits are among the most consistently accomplished in his output: the mother-and-child format gave him the opportunity to deploy the compositional lessons of Renaissance art within the entirely secular framework of Georgian aristocratic portraiture.

The mother-child composition is arranged with classical grace. Reynolds's warm palette creates an image of aristocratic maternal beauty.