Magraret Owen

On the back of this picture are the following two labels:

Margaret Owen Lady Stanley of Alderley when an old woman

Blanche Airlie


Margaret Owen Lady Stanley of Alderley

a water colour drawing from an oil painting at Penrhôs Wales

This Lady was heiress of Penrhos
a beauty painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds

the Earl of Airlie


Margaret Owen was born in 1742 and died February 1, 1816. The de Witt archive has images of three Reynolds portraits of her, all before her marriage to Sir John Stanley o April 29, 1763. One of these is noted as sold to Harvard in Christie's Guinness sale of July 10, 1953, but the Harvard archivist, who tells me they have about 60 works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, could find no trace of it on their database

It isn't clear from Airlie's note whether the Penrhos picture was itself by Reynolds.