Lady Townshend

Lady Townshend is shown in relief facing to the left. She is dressed in a white dress, sprigged with pink and blue flowers and a white frilled cap also decorated with flowers. Around her neck she wears a white and pink ruff.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, low relief portraits in wax became popular in Britain and they were often exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Society of Artists and elsewhere. Waxes were used in a similar way to prints and medals, in order to disseminate the image of the sitter, or, like miniature paintings or silhouettes as portable mementoes.