''Portrait of Elizabeth Farren, Later Countess of Derby'' is an oil on canvas painting by

Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at ...

. Produced before 1791 and probably in 1790, it is now in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, in New York, to which it was donated by Edward S. Harkness in 1940. As its title suggests, its subject

Elizabeth Farren Elizabeth Farren (c. 175923 April 1829) was an Irish actress of the late 18th century. Born in Cork in 1759 her father, George Farren was a surgeon. His drinking habits brought on early death and his widow returned to Liverpool. Her mother went ...

married Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby in 1797, seven years after the painting.

References

Paintings by Thomas Lawrence Farren Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1790s paintings {{18C-painting-stub