Margaret Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury
Engraver James Basire, the elder British
Sitter Margaret Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury British
Publisher White, Cochrane, and Co. British
Not on view
This printed portrait of Margaret, second wife to John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, derives from a painting at Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire. Horace Walpole, the eighteenth-century aesthete and collector, declared that work to be one of the oldest in England. Heraldic devices on the countess's cloak refer to her husband's family the Talbots, and to the countess's status independent status as heir to Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick.