Sir Thomas Lawrence (British, 1769-1830)
Portrait of Hon. Emma (Crewe) Cunliffe, later Emma Cunliffe-Offley

pencil, black and red chalk, heightened with white

Dimensions: 22 x 18 cm. (8 5/8 x 7 1/8 in.)

By descent from Lord Crewe to his daughter Elizabeth Emma Cumliffe later Elizabeth Emma Cumliffe-Offley
Possibly collection of Lord Houghton, according to label verso
Sale, Christie's, 17th September 1992, lot 25
Private Collection, UK

Exhibited
Nawton Brothers, Fine Art Gallery, Bond Street, Leeds, 1884, label possibly reads 'Houghton Hall [...] Exhibition [...], according to label verso
The Royal Yorkshire Jubilee Exhibition, Saltaire, 6.5.1887-31.10.1887, according to label verso

Emma Cunliffe-Offley (1780 – 1850) was the daughter of John Crewe, 1^st Baron Crewe and Member of Parliament for Cheshire, and it was from him that The Madeley Estate, Shropshire, passed, having been held by the knightly family of Offley for several centuries prior to their inter-marrying with Crewes.

The village is home to a 10-metre high monument and fountain of Caen stone, erected in memory of Emma Cunliffe-Offley by her niece, Miss Crewe.

Both drawn and painted by esteemed portrait painter and Royal Academy President, Thomas Lawrence, she was described as ‘very agreeable and though not regularly handsome, very pleasing in countenance and person’, by contemporary novelist Maria Edgeworth.

A portrait of the same subject by Thomas Lawrence is held in The Huntington Museum of Art, California (object number: 17.29).