Anne Mason, Countess of Macclesfield (1666?-1753)

Willem Wissing (Amsterdam 1656 - Burghley House 1687). Oil painting on canvas, Anne Mason, Countess of Macclesfield (1666?-1753) by Willem Wissing (Amsterdam 1656 - Burghley House 1687). 1687. Nearly full-length portrait of a young woman, seated, gazing at the spectator, dark hair, a tress falling on her left shoulder, wearing a blue dress over a white chemise with ruffled lace at neckline and sleeves and a red and gold cloak draped over her upper right arm and falling on the seat to the right on which she rests her left hand. Garden setting. Inscribed and dated 1687. Daughter of Sir Richard Mason (c.1633-1685) and Anne Margaret Long (c.1637-1711); married Charles Gerard, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield (c.1659-1701) on 18 June 1683 at St. Lawrence Jewry, London Sister of Dorothy Mason, Lady Brownlow, and the subject of one of the more bizarre scandals of the eighteenth century. Deserted by her first husband, Charles Gerard, Lord Brandon (later 2nd Earl of Macclesfield) after only two years of teenage marriage, she began a liaison ten years later with Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, from which two children were born, who were put out to nurse in great secrecy, and died. Years later the fostered poet Richard Savage (c.1697-1743) (a friend of Sir John Brownlow, Viscount Tyrconnel (1690-1754)) heard the story, and made a career from pretending he was the abandoned bastard of the Countess - a tale related by Samuel Johnson in his "Lives of the English Poets". Belton House, Lincolnshire (Accredited Museum)