A unique record of a great Elizabethan lady at her toilet, seen as if in a mirror, and perhaps to be read as a vanitas. The sitter was the daughter of John Vernon of Hodnet, Shropshire, and was Maid of Honour to Elizabeth I. She married the 3rd. Earl of Southampton secretly in 1598, incurring the Queen's heavy displeasure.
PROVENANCE by descent from the sitter to Elizabeth Wriothesley, daughter of the 4th. Earl of Southampton, who married as her second husband, Ralph, later 1st. Duke of Montagu.