Portrait of Miss Elizabeth Edgar (1733-1791), half-length, in a blue dress with a black lace shawl

The sitter was born into an old Ipswich family, the eldest daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Edgar. Robert Edgar studied at Queen's College, Cambridge and was a member of Gray's Inn and her grandfather, Devreux Edgar, owned estates in Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire and was a Major in the Suffolk Militia. Robert and Elizabeth Edgar were close friends and important patrons of Gainsborough during the years he spent in Ipswich. The family owned a number of landscape drawings by Gainsborough, and in addition to the present picture he executed portraits of Elizabeth's sister, Katharine (1740-1810, in a private collection), her brother Robert (1732-1778, present whereabouts unknown) and his wife Susanna Gery (1763-1829, present whereabouts unknown). Waterhouse records the identification of another portrait by Gainsborough, previously described as Elizabeth Edgar, as unlikely (op. cit, 1948-1950, p. 35). The present portrait is datable to 1758, and the simple elegance of the handling makes an interesting contrast with the woodland foliage in Gainsborough's portrait of her sister Katharine painted at about the same date.