One of William Hogarth’s most significant patrons, Miss Mary Edwards was reputed to be one of the richest women in England when she commissioned Hogarth to paint this portrait. She had inherited her parents’ sizable estates when she was twenty-four. She married Lord Anne Hamilton in secret and had a son with him but repudiated the union after discovering that her husband had been lavishly spending her money.

Hogarth is perhaps best known for his satires of wealthy British society, but this presentation of Mary is earnest in its celebration of a confident, independent woman—a self-described spinster. Her broad, bright red dress seems to signal the force of her spirit. The text written on the paper next to her is a passage from Cato, a play by Joseph Addison, about protecting a nation’s rights and hard-earned freedoms. The popular play is said to have inspired the founding fathers of the United States of America. On the gold watch suspended from Mary’s waist, the tiny reflection of a window gives a sense of the interior space in which she sits majestically, with her dog at her side and her elbow resting on a small table with a globe. It is not known who the marble busts mounted on the wall behind her depict, though some believe they represent Queen Elizabeth I and King Alfred the Great. Mary died when she was thirty-eight, the year after this portrait was made.