The Honourable Mrs Clarges (daughter of the 1st Viscount Barrington)

Ramsay's portrait of the Honourable Mrs Clarges — daughter of the 1st Viscount Barrington — in the Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, places him in the orbit of the English aristocratic portrait market that he successfully entered from his Scottish base in the 1740s. The Barrington family were a significant Whig political dynasty, and their daughters' portraits would have been commissioned to mark entries into London society or significant domestic events. Ramsay's access to aristocratic English families alongside his Scottish clientele reflects both the quality of his work and his social skills in navigating the complex patronage networks of mid-Georgian Britain. Sheffield's collecting of British portraiture has created a resource for Ramsay scholarship outside the primary concentrations in Edinburgh and London.

An aristocratic female portrait from the 1740s-1750s demanded the full Ramsay treatment: the delicate face modelling, the silk dress rendered with informed technical fluency, and the compositional arrangement that gave the sitter elegance without stiffness. The Barrington family's Whig connections might have led them to prefer a slightly informal, French-influenced manner over the more formal English grand manner.