Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

1 portrait

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, by Unknown artist, circa 1770 -NPG 4224 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

by Unknown artist
circa 1770
22 1/4 in. x 17 1/4 in. (565 mm x 438 mm)
NPG 4224

This portraitback to top

A slightly reduced version of a half-length painted oval in a private collection, which has been tentatively attributed to James Millar of Birmingham. [1] The sitter appears slightly older than in the engraved Russell half length of 1776; in both portraits her head leans on her left hand, the pose recurring in the portrait by Bowyer engraved in 1790.

Footnotesback to top

1) An attribution favourably discussed in correspondence between John Kerslake and Sir Gyles Isham in 1968; NPG archive.

Physical descriptionback to top

Grey eyes, black hair with a white bonnet, wearing a grey dress white fichu and a black lace shawl.

Provenanceback to top

Given or bequeathed to John Elkington;1 by descent to his great-grandson, John St C. Elkington, by whom presented 1961.

1 According to J. St C. Elkington (letter of 28 June 1961; NPG archive), together with a Chippendale chair and a trowel, both allegedly used by Lady Huntingdon in Birmingham. According to notes of a conversation between C. K. Adams and Elkington in March 1950, Lady Huntingdon herself made the gift or bequest - the Elkingtons, electro-plating manufacturers, were an Unitarian family of Birmingham; but all her possessions were left to four self-perpetuating Trustees, Lady Anne Erskine, Thomas and Hanetta Haweis and John Lloyd (B. S. Schlenther, Queen of the Methodists, 1997, p 183).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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