Lot Essay
The sitter was the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Edmund Dunch, and wife of Sir George Oxenden (1694-1775), who served a lengthy term in parliament representing the borough of Sandwich in Kent. Sir George was also a Lord of the Admiralty and of the Treasury. A notorious profligate, he had an affair with his wife's sister Arabella and is believed to have been the father of the third Earl of Orford.