The Duchess of Abercorn and her Daughter (oil on canvas)

Landseer seems to have snatched up a panel and made this sketch spontaneously, not leaving himself room for the whole of the Marchioness's head. He subsequently began, but never completed, a more elaborate version on copper (Tate). The artist had a uniquely informal relationship with the highest echelons of the Whig aristocracy, but particularly with the 6th Duke of Bedford and his much younger second wife, Georgiana, daughter of the 4th Duke of Gordon. This is just one of a succession of portraits and fancy pictures that he painted of their two youngest daughters.