Portrait of Mary Hume c.1735; Attributed to Thomas Murray

Oil on canvas in good quality period carved and giltwood frame.

Mary Hume (1715-1740) was painted in probably 1735 to commorate her betrothal to Nicholas Loftus, later 2nd Viscount Loftus of Ely and then 1st Earl of Ely. The marriage followed on 18 August 1736; the union was to be short.

Nicholas Loftus was the eldest son of Nicholas Loftus of Loftus Hall, County Wexford and his daughter Anne Ponsonby, daughter of the the 1st Viscount Duncannon.
The Loftus family was wealthy and long-established in Ireland, being descended from Archbishop Adam Loftus (Lord Chancellor of Ireland and founding Provost of Trinity College Dublin).

Mary was the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Sir Gustavus Hume, 3rd Bt, who was an enormously wealthy landowner with vast estates in County Fermanagh, where he had commissioned Richard Castle to design him a neo-classical mansion, Castle Hume. Hume had been High Sheriff of that county in 1701.
Nicholas Loftus took the suffix Hume when he married.

Mary bore a son, another Nicholas, in 1738, but died in 1740 aged 25.

{Our thanks to Simon Loftus, a direct descendant, for the above information}

THOMAS MURRAY (1663-1735), Portrait painter.
Scottish-born Murray moved to London and studied with a member of the De Critz family before becoming a pupil of eminent portraitist John Riley. In 1703, he painted Queen Anne for the Society of the Middle Temple in London, showing her crowned and in royal robes. His many full-length oil paintings include a portrait of John, 1st Duke of Atholl.
Several of his portraits are in the National Portrait Gallery and include such luminaries as William III and Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect and playwright.

SIZE: 36.75 x 32 inches inc. frame.
PROVENANCE: *by family descent.
*With Roy Precious Fine Art.
*Collection of a Fellow of a Cambridge College.