This full-length portrait of Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton was painted in 1751, by Gavin Hamilton, presumably for the sitter’s husband. It has been in the Hamilton Collection ever since.

The duchess is shown in a grey silk gown, with coral coloured draperies, a gauze scarf knotted round her shoulders. A greyhound places his front paws on her skirt. In the background is a wooded landscape.

One of the beautiful Gunning sisters, Elizabeth married the duke after a whirlwind romance in 1752. After his death in 1758 she married 'Handsome Jack Campbell' who later became Duke of Argyll, making her famously the wife of two dukes and the mother of three. Gavin Hamilton the artist was a distant relative of the ducal family. Born in Lanark in 1723, he studied in Rome and became a pioneer of Neo-Classical painting. He is best known for his large scale subject pictures of mythological scenes.