Mary Buckeridge (c.1672–1739)

This portrait of Mary Buckeridge from around 1720 represents one of the many portraits of English gentry women that Kneller produced in his prolific final years through a workshop practice that maintained his signature quality while meeting enormous demand. The sheer volume of Kneller's production — he is estimated to have painted over 5,000 portraits — required a studio operation in which assistants prepared canvases, painted drapery, and completed backgrounds while Kneller concentrated on the faces. This workshop practice was standard for successful portrait painters of the period and was understood by contemporaries as professional efficiency rather than compromise. Mary Buckeridge's portrait preserves the image of a woman otherwise unrecorded in major historical sources.

The portrait follows Kneller's standard formula for female gentry subjects, with soft features, fashionable dress, and a landscape background rendered in the broad, efficient manner of his studio production.