5 OF 15 
Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (née Harley), Duchess of Portland
5 of 15 portraits by John Michael Rysbrack
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (née Harley), Duchess of Portland
by George Vertue, after John Michael Rysbrack
line engraving, 1727
8 1/2 in. x 6 3/4 in. (217 mm x 170 mm) paper size
Bequeathed by (Frederick) Leverton Harris, 1927
Reference Collection
NPG D14100
Sitterback to top
- Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (née Harley), Duchess of Portland (1715-1785), Collector of art and natural history specimens and patron of arts and sciences. Sitter in 4 portraits.
Artistsback to top
- John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770), Sculptor. Artist or producer associated with 15 portraits, Sitter in 7 portraits.
- George Vertue (1683-1756), Engraver and antiquary. Artist or producer associated with 865 portraits, Sitter in 7 portraits.
Events of 1727back to top
Current affairs
George I dies on 11 January. George II is proclaimed king; the second Hanoverian on the British throne. Handel composes Zadok the Priest for his coronation which has been sung at every British coronation since.Royal Bank of Scotland is founded by Royal Charter in Edinburgh.
Janet (Jenny) Horne of Loth, Sutherland, becomes the last alleged witch to be executed in Britain when she is burned at the stake in Dornoch, Scotland.
Art and science
Artist Thomas Gainsborough is born in Sudbury, Suffolk in May.Architect William Kent publishes Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones, including additional designs by himself and his patron Lord Burlington.German composer George Frideric Handel becomes a British subject.
Scientist Sir Isaac Newton dies.
International
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach conducts the first performance of his St Matthew Passion in St Thomas's church, Leipzig.Spain besieges Gibraltar in order to recapture the territory from the British.
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Gordon Balderston
25 October 2016, 15:43
Lady Margaret Harley was born on 11 February 1715 and so she cannot be more than twelve years old in this portrait. For an account of Vertue’s engraving, Rysbrack’s bust and Harley patronage, see Gordon Balderston, 'Young Lady Margaret Harley by Michael Rysbrack’ in The Sculpture Journal, vol. 7, spring 2002, pp. 26-29 (which illustrates NPG D9294, another example of this engraving formerly in MacDonnell collection).
Too faint to read in scanned image is OPUS RYSBRAK on edge of socle, which Vertue added to denote that the bust and its base were the work of the sculptor Rysbrack. (Inconsistent spelling of surnames is typical of period.)
In 1729 examples of a slightly later impression were bound in The Works of Edmund Waller Esqr. in Verse and Prose to illustrate the prefatory dedication by Elijah Fenton “to the Right Honorable the Lady Margaret Cavendishe Harley” (so addressed since May 1724 when her father inherited the title Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer). Such later impressions are distinguished by “dedication” inscribed in top corner and by the addition of the sculptor’s initial M in Vertue’s statement of the bust’s authorship, i.e. “Opus marmor M. RYSBRAKE Londini”. Fenton’s long panegyric of 1729 includes the lines
Inspir’d with life by Sculpture’s happy toil,
The marble breathes, and softens with your smile:
Proud to receive the form, by fate design’d
The fairest model of the fairer kind.