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Diana Pryce (b. 1731) with the attributes of Diana
The painting is signed and dated 'Jn Lewis Fect/1752'. Lewis was a portraitist and stage painter, also active in Dublin and London, who had previously painted portraits of the sitter and her sister in 1737. Here Diana appears with the crescent moon on her head, and holding a bow and arrow, symbols of the goddess of hunting. She was the daughter of Sir John Pryce (d.1761) of Newtown Hall, Newtown, Montgomeryshire. He was a famous eccentric, who kept the embalmed bodies of his first two wives in his bedroom until his third wife insisted on their removal.