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Frances Douglas (née Lascelles)
(1762-1817), Wife of John Douglas, son of 14th
Earl of Morton
Referring to the smaller portrait: In the late 18th century acquiring a portrait of this kind was a novelty preserved for the extremely wealthy. A likeness would need to be created in England to then be exported to China along with the most expensive part of the object at that date, the glass; the likeness would then be copied in reverse to the back of the glass by the Chinese painter then to be returned to England. By the time the portrait arrived back with the person who commissioned it, the costly, and extremely fragile glass would have completed a treacherous 10,000 mile roundtrip, needless to say many such objects did not survive the trip. The Lascelles family fortune was made from mercantile endeavour, and it would probably be through his contacts in that world that Lord Harewood would order these charming pictures of (his wife and) daughter.
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