Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

This portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu from around 1720 depicts one of the most remarkable women of eighteenth-century England — wit, poet, travel writer, and pioneer of smallpox inoculation who observed the practice during her husband's ambassadorship to Ottoman Constantinople. By 1720, Lady Mary had returned from Turkey and was introducing inoculation into England against fierce medical opposition, saving lives while provoking controversy. Kneller's portrait captures her at the height of her intellectual influence, a celebrated figure in London's literary and social world whose friendship with Alexander Pope had recently turned to public literary warfare. The portrait preserves the appearance of a woman who expanded eighteenth-century understanding of what an intellectual woman could accomplish.

Kneller presents Lady Mary with the combination of fashionable elegance and individual character that distinguished his best female portraits, the sitter's intelligent expression conveyed through carefully observed features.