George Romney

Commissioned from the artist in 1786 and delivered in May 1801;

Thence by descent to the sitter's grandson, Sir Everard Hastings Doyle (1852-1933), 3rd Baronet London, until at least 1904;

Charles Davis;

From whom acquired by Agnew's, London, July 1912;

With Fischoff Galleries, London;

With Agnew's, London, 1916;

From whom acquired by W.B. Duckworth, The Grange, Hooton, Birkenhead, December 1919;

By whom sold, London, Christie's, 11 May 1923, lot 89;

Where acquired by Levy Bros. for £3,780;

Mrs. William B. Weaver;

By whose estate sold ("Property of the Estate of Mrs. William B. Weaver"), New York, Sotheby's, 21 October 1988, lot 204;

Where acquired by Heim Gallery, London;

Thence acquired by the present collector.

T.H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney: A Biographical and Critical Essay with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Works, New York 1904, vol. I, p. 66; vol. II, pp. 105-106;

A. Kidson, George Romney, A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London 2015, vol. II, pp. 403-404, cat. no. 892, reproduced.

Lady Diana Milner (née Sturt; 1756-1805) was the daughter of Humphrey Sturt of Crichel, Dorset. She married Sir William Mordaunt Milner, 3rd Baronet of Nun Appleton Hall, with whom she had five children, and she “was admired as the finest, the most beautiful and most accomplished woman of the fashionable world, of which she was at once the ornament and leader;” "her taste and accomplishments long shed a lustre over the elegant life in which she moved,".¹

According to Romney's Ledger, Lady Milner commissioned two full-length portraits: the present work, which was cut down from full-length to three-quarters while still in the artist’s possession, and a full-length version in the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva (inv. no. 1985-0059).

¹ Gentleman's Magazine (January 1805), quoted in T.H. Ward and W. Roberts 1904, vol. II, p. 106.