When Henry Clay Frick acquired the portrait of this amiable-looking woman, in 1910, she was identified as Elizabeth Goodin (or Gooden) Houghton, who married Sir John Taylor, in 1778. But the source of this information is unknown. Several portraits by Reynolds, the most sought after British portraitist of his day, have been thought to depict a “Lady Taylor.” Moreover, the name Taylor appears numerous times in Reynolds’s appointment books and notes, where he recorded details concerning sittings, commissions, and payments for hundreds of portraits painted over the course of his prestigious career. Even the dating of the portrait is a challenge, and it has even been suggested that this sitter’s hat may have been altered at a later date to keep up with fashion, which was a relatively common practice in eighteenth-century British portraiture. If the sitter is indeed Elizabeth, Lady Taylor, Reynolds depicts her as young and fashionable: she wears a sumptuous dress, ornate hat, powdered wig, and a neck kerchief covering her décolletage. She wears no jewelry, however, except for the hint of a black choker at her neck.