Portrait of Henrietta Paulet, Duchess of Bolton, née Crofts, (c. 1682–1730), three-quarter length, standing on a colonnaded terrace wearing an ivory silk gown and holding a sprig of orange blossom, an Italianate country house and garden in the background.

Oil on canvas, inscribed "Duchess of Bolton 1720" to the verso, housed in a magnificent English period 'Sunderland' frame.
Canvas: 125 x 102cm (49 1/2 x 40 in.)

Henrietta was the eldest daughter of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (who was the illegitimate son of King Charles II), and Eleanor Needham. Henrietta took the surname of “Crofts” that had been assumed by her father when he was in the care of the Crofts baronets. Her mother’s sister, Jane Myddelton, was one of the celebrated Windsor Beauties. Henrietta became the third wife of Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton in Dublin in about 1697, some years after the death of his second wife, Frances.

From 1714 to 1717, the duchess was a Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales, Caroline of Ansbach.She was one of the aristocratic female signatories to Thomas Coram’s petition to establish the Foundling Hospital in London, which was presented to King George II in 1735. She signed the petition on 25 April 1729, and Gillian Wagner suggests that the Bolton family members may have signed as a result of their ‘personal experience of illegitimacy in the(ir) family’.

Charles and Henrietta had one son, Lord Nassau Powlett who became the third Duke of Bolton.

Previously identified as Maria, Adriana Verelst (1680-1744) was born in Vienna and was the daughter of Cecilia Fend and the artist Herman Verelst (1641-1690), a member of the Verelst family of artists. The family moved to London when she was aged three following the Turkish siege of Vienna and later she became a pupil of her father. She started painting portraits professionally at age fourteen painting William Wentworth, 2^nd Earl of Strafford (1626-1695).

Other known works include several portraits for Welbeck Abbey, as well as thirteen portraits for James Brydges, 1^st Duke of Chandos (1673-1744) which were likely intended for Cannons House, completed in 1724 and his London home in St James’s Square.

Adriana went on to work alongside other well-known artists including Charles Jervas, William Aikman and John Thornhill. Her portraits were in the similar fashionable 18th style as Godfrey Kneller and Michael Dahl and much of her work remains misattributed to these and other male artists from the period. 

There are particular stylistic techniques that Adriana liked to use, such as more pronounced and brighter highlights in clothes and drapery and the care she took in placing her sitters within an interesting architectural or garden setting.

Adriana was well educated and spoke a number of different languages which no doubt helped her secure patronage. According to an anecdote published in 1730 Maria was once at Drury Lane theatre when she heard some gentlemen nearby praising her in German, she then turned to them and began conversing in the same language before the gentleman switched to Latin, Adriana proceeded in Latin and the gentlemen were so impressed that they commissioned their portraits, and through their connections Adriana supposedly built up her list of clientele.