Lady Mary Pierrepont, Later Wortley Montagu

Godfrey Kneller painted Lady Mary Pierrepont — later the celebrated writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu — around 1710, when she was about twenty-one. Lady Mary would go on to write remarkable letters from Constantinople during her husband's ambassadorship, introduce smallpox inoculation to England after observing the practice in Turkey, and establish herself as one of the most brilliant literary women of the early eighteenth century. Kneller's portrait captures her youth and beauty at the beginning of her remarkable trajectory. As Principal Painter to successive British monarchs, Kneller documented virtually every significant figure of the late Stuart and early Hanoverian period, and his Lady Mary joins a portrait gallery of the early eighteenth century's most consequential individuals.

The portrait follows Kneller's established formula for aristocratic female subjects, with elegant pose, rich costume, and an idealized treatment of features that balanced flattery with recognizable likeness.