Commissioned by George, the Prince of Wales (1762-1830) (later George IV), Carlton House, London [1]

By descent to the sitter, Maria Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837), Brighton, United Kingdom [2]

By descent to her adoptive daughter, Hon. Mary Georgiana Emma (Minney) Seymour (1798-1848), United Kingdom

By descent to her daughter Georgiana Augusta Charlotte Caroline Dawson-Damer (d. 1866), Castle Hill, Devonshire, United Kingdom

Sold to Arthur Sanderson (1846-1915), Edinburgh, ca. 1895 [3]

[Sold jointly to Knoedler, New York, and Trotti & Cie, Paris,  March 19, 1907] [4]

Sold to John F. Talmage Jr. (1875-1943), New York, December 31, 1909 [5]

[Sold to Knoedler, New York, February 1912] [6]

Sold to Sir James Dunn, 1st Baronet (1874-1956), London, February 13, 1912 [7]

[Sold jointly to Knoedler, Colnaghi, and Scott and Fowls, July 2, 1914] [8]

Sold to J. Horace Harding (1863-1929), New York, February 1, 1917

His widow’s sale, New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, March 1, 1941, lot 60

[Purchased by Knoedler, New York] [9]

Sold to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, March 3, 1941

Administrative transfer to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1972

[1] Recorded as in store in an 1816 Carlton House inventory, no. 327.

[2] Sent by George IV’s brother William IV to the sitter on October 5, 1830.

[3] Per Belsey 2019, p. 318. 

[4] Getty Research Institute, Knoedler & Co. records, Knoedler stock book 5, page 144, row 47, stock no. 11381, http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2012m54b5. 

[5] Ibid. 

[6] Getty Research Institute, Knoedler & Co. records, Knoedler stock book 6, page 4, row 21, stock no. 12698, http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2012m54b6. 

[7] Ibid. 

[8] Getty Research Institute, Knoedler & Co. records, Knoedler stock book 6, page 98, row 31, stock no. 13541, http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2012m54b6.  

[9] Getty Research Institute, Knoedler & Co. records, Knoedler stock book 8, page 209, row 54, stock no. A2320, http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2012m54b5. 

London, South Kensington Museum, 1868. “Third Exhibition of National Portraits,” no. 821.

London, Grosvenor Gallery, 1885. “Exhibition of the Works of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.,” no. 10.

London, New Gallery 1891. “Exhibition of the Royal House of Guelph,” no. 85.

London, Grafton Galleries 1894. “Fair Women,” no. 73. 

Paris, British Royal Pavilion, 1900. “Exposition Universelle,” no. 27

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1905, no. 7.

London, Knoedler, November–December, 1908. “Exhibition of Old Masters,” no. 15.

New York, M. Knoedler & Co., January 11–27, 1912. “Loan Exhibition of Old Masters for the Benefit…,” no. 15.

Paris, Knoedler, April–May, 1913. “Exposition de tableaux de Maîtres Anciens,” no. 9.

Cincinnati Art Museum, May 1–31, 1931. “Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.,” no. 11.

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, June–July, 1933. “Loan Exhibition of English Painting of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” no. 12.

Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum, January 26–February 10, 1937. “Forty-Three Portraits,” no. 35.

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, October 1938.  “Golden Jubilee Exhibition: State Fair of Texas, British Portraits of the Eighteenth Century,” no. 6.

New York, James St. L. O'Toole Gallery, 1939. “Inaugural Exhibition: Portraits by Masters of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries,” no. 14.

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor; San Francisco, de Young Memorial Museum, December 29, 1939–January 28, 1940. “Seven Centuries of Painting,” Y-95.

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, August 1951. “10th Anniversary Loan Exhibition of Old Master Paintings from California Museums,” no. 8.

Birmingham, UK, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, April 28–July 9, 1995; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, July 29–October 9, 1995. “Thomas Gainsborough: The Harvest Wagon,” no. 21. [Toronto only]. 

Cincinnati Art Museum, September 18, 2010–January 2, 2011; San Diego Museum of Art, January 29–May 1, 2011. “Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman,” no cat. no. 

“The Portraits at South Kensington (Second Notice),” Morning Post, April 23, 1868, pg. 6. 

“The Guelph Exhibition,” Weekly Dispatch (London), January 4, 1891, pg. 6. 

Monkhouse, C., “A Northern Art Patron II: The British Portraits,” Art Journal 59 (February 1897), pgs. 35, 36, repr. 

Armstrong, Sir Walter, Gainsborough and His Place in British Art, London: Charles Scribner's Sons and New York: William Heinemann, 1898, pg. 195.

Bell, Mrs. Arthur (nee D’Anvers), Thomas Gainsborough: A Record of His Life and Works, London: George Bell & Sons, 1897, pgs. 98-100. 

Webber, Byron, James Orrock R.I.: Painter, Connoisseur, Collection, vol. 2, London: Chatto & Windus, 1903, repr. opposite pg. 122.

Gower, Ronald Sutherland, Thomas Gainsborough, London: G. Bell and Sons, 1903, repr. opp. pg. 108, pg. 120.

Fletcher, Alfred Ewen, Thomas Gainsborough R.A., London: Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1904, pg. 198

Wilkins, W. H., Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV, New York: Longmans Green, 1905, repr. on the frontispiece. 

Armstrong, Walter, Gainsborough and His Place in English Art, London: William Heinemann and New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906, pg. 265. 

Mourey, Gabriel, “Les peintres de la femme au XVIIIe siecle,” L’Art et les artistes 9 (April–September 1909), pg. 87, repr.

Menpes, Mortimer, and James Greig, Gainsborough, London: A. and C. Black, 1909, pg. 173

Loan Exhibition of Old Masters, exh. cat., New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1912, no. 15, repr., unpaginated. 

Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A, exh. cat., Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1931, pg. 23, no. 11, pl. 43. 

The Collection of the Late J. Horace Harding, New York: James St. L. O'Toole Gallery, 1938, pg. 24, repr. 

California Palace of the Legion of Honor: Illustrated Handbook of the Collection, San Francisco: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1942, repr. pg. 57; 1944, repr. pg. 62; 1946, repr. pg. 68; 1960, repr. pg. 41. 

Howe Jr., Thomas Carr, “Return of the Museum’s Masterpieces,” Bulletin of The California Palace of the Legion of Honor 2, no. 1 (April 1944), repr. on cover, pg. 5. 

Davisson, Gay Drake, “The Mildred Anna Williams Collection,” Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor Bulletin 4, nos. 3-4 (July and August, 1946), repr. pg. 26, pg. 28. 

Waterhouse, E. K., “A Gainsborough Bill for the Prince of Wales,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 88, no. 524 (1946), pg. 276.

Waterhouse, E.K., “Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough,” The Volume of the Walpole Society 33 (1953), pg. 39. 

Waterhouse, Ellis Kirkham, Gainsborough, London: E. Hulton, 1958, pg. 67. no. 254.

Millar, Oliver, The Later Georgian Portraits in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London: Phaidon, 1969, pg. Xxvi, 35, fig. XVII. 

Morse, John D., Paintings in North America, New York: Abbeville Press, 1979, pg. 134. 

Ormond, Richard, and Malcolm Rogers, eds., Dictionary of British Artists, vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pg. 79.

Goldyne, Joseph R., “British Art at San Francisco,” Apollo 111, no. 217 (March 1980), pgs. 123, fig. 4, 124, 125.

Millar, Oliver, “George IV When Prince of Wales: His Debts to Artists and Craftsmen,” The Burlington Magazine 128, no. 1001 (1986), pg. 588. 

Spencer-Longhurst, Paul, and Janet M. Brooke, Thomas Gainsborough: The Harvest Wagon, exh. cat., Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1995, pg. 52, no. 21, repr., pg. 53. 

Baetjer, Katharine, British Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009, pg. 188, fig. 118. 

Leca, Benedict, ed., Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman, exh. cat., Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 2010, repr. pg. 32, pl. 8, pg. 138. 

Hamilton, James, Gainsborough: A Portrait, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017, pg. 341.

Belsey, Hugh, Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies after Old Masters, vol. 1, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019, pgs. 318-319, no. 331, repr.