Footnotes

Provenance
Bequeathed by the sitter to her daughter, Lady Henrietta Anne Barbara Hobart (1763-1828), who married the Rt. Hon. John Sullivan, MP
Their daughter Harriet Margaret Sullivan (1795-1873) who married Vice Admiral Sir George Tyler, Governor of St. Vincent, and thence by descent in the Tyler family

Literature
Albinia Lady Cust, The Albinia Book, London, 1929, pp.45-82, ill. opposite p.45

Albinia Bertie (1738-1816) was the daughter of Lord Vere Bertie and his wife Anne Casey and probably spent her early life in Lincolnshire. She married the Hon. George Hobart, later 3rd Earl of Buckinghamshire at the age of nineteen, becoming the Countess of Buckinghamshire in 1793. Her husband was appointed secretary to the embassy in Saint Petersburg in 1762, but in reality he failed to distinguish himself either in this line or in his alternative careers in politics, the army or as manager of the Great Opera House in Haymarket.

Albinia on the other hand, as well as giving him five sons and four daughters, became a society figure of some renown, throwing herself into a life of amateur theatricals, music performances and parties that were the talk of London. Her home in Richmond, based on the King of Prussia's summer palace, was the venue for extravagant gatherings to which fashionable society flocked, their hostess always attired in the latest outfits and leading the field in her enjoyment of the entertainment, particularly dancing at which she excelled. When high-stakes gambling became all the rage in the 1780s and '90s Albinia embraced the fashion with zeal, becoming quite notorious for the eye-watering sums that she bet – and lost - at the card table. As the most serious gaming took place in gentlemen's clubs to which she was denied access, she ran an illegal table of her own at home, undeterred either by the threat of fines or by exposure by a scandalised press that was heavily critical of what they saw as dissolute behaviour. She took to political campaigning in support of her relative Sir Cecil Wray in 1784 and again attracted the notice of the press who were fascinated that society ladies like Albinia and Georgiana Cavendish should involve themselves in the rough and tumble of the hustings. Her lifestyle caught the eye of the social satirists Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and James Gillray (1756-1815), the latter immortalising her in no fewer than sixteen of his prints.

Thomas Hudson painted at least one other member of the Bertie family; a portrait of Albinia's cousin Peregrine, later 3rd Duke of Ancaster, hangs in the picture collection at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire.