Portrait of Jane du Cane, alias du Quesne (b.1711), three-quarter-length, in a white silk dress with golden trimming and a plumed hat, a cane in her left hand, a landscape beyond

Jane du Cane was the daughter of Richard du Cane (1688-1741), M.P. for Colchester, and his wife Anne Lyde. The du Cane family were a Hugenot family, who arrived in England in the late sixteenth century to escape persecution in the Spanish Netherlands. They were a powerful and influential family in London. The present sitter's brother Peter (1713-1803) became a Director of the Bank of England, East India Company and Vice-President of the London Infirmary. Du Cane married Charles Boehm (1699-1769) in 1730, who came from an equally powerful Hugenot family. Gawen Hamilton's magnificent group portrait of c.1734-5 at Tate Britain commemorates their marriage and family's alliance.