Mary Fanshawe, née Coke (1674-1713)

Mary Fanshawe, née Coke, was one of seven children and the eldest daughter of Colonel John Coke MP (1655-1692) and his wife Mary Leventhorpe. Her father was a keen supporter of William III in the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. Mary's brother Thomas Coke (1674-1727) became Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Anne and was a great patron of Michael Dahl. It was probably as a result of this patronage that Mary sat to Dahl, who also painted a portrait of her second son John Fanshawe (1697-1763) later Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. There are two other versions of this portrait: one version was in a private collection in Essex and the other is in Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire, once the home of Colonel John Coke and now of Sir Ralph and Lady Kerr. The sitter also appears as a child in a family group portrait of the children of Colonel Coke by Jacob Huysmans, likewise at

Melbourne Hall.