[Lady (Mount) Edgcumbe]

This is one of six early caricature portraits attributed to Gillray and published in May, June, and July of 1780. Given their size—approximately 3-1/2 by 2-1/2 inches—they seem more like the kinds of caricature sketches of heads Gillray made later in his career in preparation for a satiric print. Only this time, the satiric print (La Belle Assemblee) seemingly based on this sketch does not appear for another seven years. It's possible, then, that this print began as a kind of experiment imitating head shots by Pier Leone Ghezzi or Thomas Patch, and, when it succeeded so well, Gillray and the Humphreys decided to publish it.

Emma, Lady (Mount) Edgcumbe (1729 – 1807), was the only daughter of John Gilbert (1693 – 1761) who, during his lifetime, held a variety of increasingly prestigious positions in the Anglican Church, including Dean of Exeter, Bishop of Llandalf, Bishop of Salisbury, and Archbishop of York, most of them seemingly undeserved. He was equally undistinguished as both a scholar and a churchman and, according to Horace Walpole, "composed of that common mixture of ignorance, meanness, and arrogance."

His daughter Emma was reputed to be quite homely. During a sitting with Joshua Reynolds for a portrait when she was 29 and still single, she is supposed to have have remarked, "I do not know what you may think of my face for a picture, but this I know, that it is no common face." Reynolds is said to have responded, "Thank God it is not."

Seemingly headed for a life as an old maid, she must have suprised most observers by finding a soul-mate at 32 in another late bloomer George Edgcumbe (1720 – 1795), a long-time naval officer, who had served in a variety of commands during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, becoming Rear Admiral in 1762. He was 41 when they married in 1761.

At the time of this caricature portrait in 1780, Lady (Mount) Edgcumbe was 51. She was part of a circle of society women which included Lady Albinia Hobart (whose daughter eventually married Lady Edgcumbe's son) and Lady Cecilia Johnston. So it is not surprising that they sometimes appear together.

Later, Emma's diminutive son, Richard, also provided Gillray with a satiric target, appearing in The Pic-Nic Orchestra (1802), Blowing up the Pic Nic's (1802), and Dilettanti-Theatricals (1803).

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on [Lady (Mount)Edgcumbe].
• "John Gilbert (archbishop of York)," Wikipedia
• "George Edgcumbe, 1st Earl of Mount Edgcumbe," Wikipedia