On the back stretcher of this painting is written in an anonymous hand, Dorothy Clemens [sic] of Durham Anno. Aetat: 18. 1736. Described by Walpole as a milliner's apprentice at Durham, Dorothy was the mistress of Sir Edward Walpole and the mother of his four children, of whom Edward was very fond, according to Horace, and, consequently, "never likely to marry." Walpole gave an account of the children to Mann on 13 January 1784: Edward, a colonel in the army, died young. Laura was married to Frederic Keppel Bishop of Exeter; Maria, married first to James, 2d Earl of Waldegrave, and secondly to his Royal Highness William Henry Duke of Gloucester; and Charlotte, married to Lionel Tollemache Earl of Dysart.