LADY DIANA BEAUCLERK.
Lady Diana Spencer, the wife of Topham Beauclerk, and the daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was celebrated as an amateur artist, and produced drawings that gained the enthusiastic admiration of Walpole. In 1776 he built a hexagonal tower, which he called “Beauclerk Closet,” as it was constructed “purposely for the reception of seven incomparable drawings by Lady Diana, illustrating scenes in his ‘Mysterious Mother.’” They were conceived and executed in a fortnight. In 1796 the lady produced designs for a translation of Bürger’s ballad of “Leonore,” by her nephew, published in folio the following year. Lady Diana also finished a series of designs for a splendid edition of Dryden’s Fables in folio. These show that she possessed an elegant and fertile imagination, with a truly classic taste. In her portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, the nymph-like grace of the figure is like what a Grecian sculptor would give to the form of a dryad or river-goddess.
She died in 1808, at the age of seventy-four.