Daniel Gardner

By descent within the sitter's family  

Caroline Elisa Maria Rumbold was the eldest daughter of Sir George Rumbold, 2^nd Bt. and Caroline Hearn. Sir George was a diplomat who served as British minister to Hanover between 1803 and 1806, while her paternal grandfather, the 1^st Baronet, had been Governor of Madras from 1777 until 1780.

Her father died in 1807 and in 1810 her mother moved to Paris with Vice-Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, whom she had married in October of that year. Caroline moved there too, and in February 1828 she married Adolphe-Lazare de St Clair. He was born in Lyon in 1786 and later served as a colonel of the Garde du Roi. He died in Colombo, Ceylon in 1847 while Caroline died in Paris in February 1848.

Drawn by Gardner in London, Caroline is a young girl. In later life, she was described by one contemporary as being 'flirtatious and extravagant’.¹

^{1. S. Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters, 2 vols., 1855, on-line}