Portrait of Lady Anne Furnese, three-quarter-length, in an oyster satin dress, and a blue wrap, her right arm resting on a plinth

It is likely that the present sitter, identified as Lady Anne Furnese, was Anne (c.1665-1695), daughter of Robert Brough of St. Lawrence Jewry. She married Henry Furnese of Waldershare, Kent, aged 19, in November 1684. Henry Furnese was knighted at The Hague on 21 October 1691, and his wife then described in burial registers of 1695 as Lady Anne Furnese. The estate of Waldershare and its contents, including family portraits, were passed to their son, Sir Robert Furnese, 2nd Bt. (1687-1732/3), and in turn to his daughter, Katherine, wife of the 1st Earl of Guilford (see lot 57). On her death without issue, the seat and collections of the Furnese family passed to her husband and consequently the Earls of Guilford.

Alternatively, the present sitter could be Anne (c.1688-1713), née Balam, the first wife of Sir Robert Furnese, 2nd Bt. However, although the couple married in c. 1708, Robert Furnese only succeeded as 2nd Baronet in 1712, shortly before Anne's death aged 25 in May 1713, when she would only have been Lady Anne Furnese for approximately six months.