The very pretty Sophia Catherine Musters is the wife of John Musters, mother of three children, and the niece of Countess Howe (who can be seen in a painting by Thomas Gainsborough, also on exhibit in Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Van Dyck).

This is the same Mrs. Musters who was also painted by Joshua Reynolds as Hebe, the Greek goddess of youth. (That painting is also included in this exhibition). She’s the unhappily married Mrs. Musters who later took on several lovers.

In this portrait she doesn’t look unhappy, but it was painted at what must have been one of her most agonizing times: the year in which she baptized and then buried her third and youngest child.

Romney paints her in fashionable clothes, with a hat that would later date the painting. He cuts the top of the hat out of the portrait. That was likely an artistic decision made in homage to one of his favorite paintings by Peter Paul Rubens.