73 - ENGLISH SCHOOL (18TH CENTURY)A PORTRAIT OF A LADY, TRADITIONALLY IDENTIFIED AS MRS ELIZABETH DARWIN, NÉE HILLOil on canvas, in a painted cartouche73 x 60.5cm (28½ x 23¾in.)Elizabeth Darwin, née Hill (1702–1797) was married to Robert Darwin (1682 – 1754). Over the course of their marriage the couple had seven children including Erasmus Darwin (1731 – 1802), a successful physician, botanist, inventor, and poet who was painted by Joseph Wright of Derby (see Sotheby’s 9 July 2009, lot 19). Erasmus was also the grandfather of the great naturalist Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), thus making Elizabeth his paternal great grandmother.Another version of this portrait, identified as Elizabeth, can be found in the collection of Darwin College at the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1964, Darwin college was the first graduate-only college and the first to admit both men and women. Since 1885, Darwin’s second son George, owned some of the property which is now occupied by the college, specifically Newham Grange, The Old Granary and Small Island.It has recently been suggested that the sitter in both this portrait, and that in the collection at Darwin college may have been mis-identified and is in fact Elizabeth Darwin’s mother, Elizabeth Hill (née Alvey). This would perhaps fit better with the date of the clothes worn by the woman in the portrait, which are more in-keeping with Elizabeth Hill’s dates (she married in 1698). With mother and daughter both sharing the same name, it is not surprising that the identity of the sitter may have become muddled through the generations.Elizabeth Alvey married John Hill a prosperous lawyer of Sleaford in1698. She was Erasmus Darwin’s grandmother.