Thomas Gainsborough

Grace Dalrymple, the third daughter of Hugh Dalrymple, an Edinburgh barrister, was born about 1754 and spent the early years of her life in the home of her mother’s parents, her own parents having separated. When her mother died she was sent by her father to a convent school in France. Even as a girl she was considered a beauty. One contemporary said she was “as rosy as Hebe, graceful as Venus”, and another declared that “her complexion was clear as the clouds of a May morning and tinged with the roseate blush of Aurora; her disposition was lively, and her temper mild and engaging.” Although her face was handsome, her figure was even more striking, for she was remarkably tall.

Married at seventeen to John (afterwards Sir John) Elliott, a wealthy physician eighteen years her senior who devoted most of his time to his profession, “Dally the Tall” soon became involved in affairs with other men. After her husband divorced her in 1776, she became the mistress of the Earl of Cholmondeley, and later of the Prince of Wales. On March 30, 1782, she gave birth to a daughter, fathered, she claimed, by the Prince. Lord Cholmondeley adopted the girl, Georgiana, who was brought up and educated in his family, where she was known as Miss Seymour. Mrs. Elliott continued with various liaisons, living alternately in London and on the Continent.

During the French Revolution she remained in Paris. Little is known of her life except what she recorded in her Journal, which is not always trustworthy. She was detained in the maison d’arrêt at Versailles after the fall of the Duc d’Orleans (whose mistress then she was), probably from about December of 1793 to October of 1794. While she claimed in her Journal to have been in four Paris prisons, her name is not on the register of any of them.

Mrs. Elliott returned to England in January of 1798 to find that her former patrons were not pleased to see her; it is said that the Prince of Wales took steps to have her return to France. The rest of her life is obscure. Her last years were spent at Ville d’Avray, near Paris, where she died on May 16, 1823.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.