Mrs. Jordan was the leading comic actress of late Georgian England and in this painting she’s in one of her most celebrated roles: Viola in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” Her character wears male clothing because she is disguised as the young Cesario, a page. Her given name was Dorothy Bland and she was the daughter of an Irish actress. She followed her mother’s career choice but after getting pregnant by a theater manager, she fled Ireland to Leeds, England, where she adopted the stage name “Mrs. Jordan.”

For more than two decades she reigned as the ‘comic muse’ at the Drury Lane Theatre. But she was also widely known as the subject of scandal. She left her partner and took on Prince William, the Duke of Clarence, as her lover. She remained the Duke’s companion for two decades and the couple had 10 children. After they separated, he gave her a stipend as long as she did not return to the stage.

When she fell into debt, she returned to acting—and the Duke cut her off financially. She died in poverty and many decades after her death, the Dictionary of National Biography described her as “an adventuress of uncertain virtue.”