Catherine 'Kitty' Hunter, Lady Clarke

Nathaniel Hone the elder, RA (Dublin 1718 – London 1784). Oil painting on canvas, Catherine 'Kitty' Hunter, Lady Clarke by Nathaniel Hone the elder, RA (Dublin 1718 – London 1784), signed and dated (on reverse): N.Hone pinx 1780. A half-length portrait of a mature woman, seated in a chair against a dark background. She has curly brown hair visible under a greyish headdress with two bows, one above the other, at centre, and tied under the chin with a third bow. She wears a brownish gown with a v-necked collar and three-quarter-length sleeves. A small miniature hanging from a narrow thread around her neck, is held sideways in her right hand. The left hand, lying across her lap, supports the right arm. Catherine (‘Kitty’) Hunter, Lady Clarke was the daughter of an Admiralty Lord. Her association with Augustus Hervey, later 3rd Lord Bristol, must have begun soon after 1763 on her return from France, where she had eloped with Lord Pembroke. Her son by Augustus Hervey, ‘Little Augustus’, was born around 1764/5 and is the subject of a small octagonal portrait by Gainsborough at Ickworth. She finally married Field-Marshal Sir Alured Clarke. According to Horace Walpole, she had the face of a Madonna. Ickworth, Suffolk (Accredited Museum)