Portrait of Daisy Leiter, Kenwood House

Marguerite Hyde Leiter, known as Daisy, was a wealthy American heiress, once described as ‘Daisy with the violet orbs…the loveliest eyes in Washington’.

This portrait by the celebrated society artist John Singer Sargent was painted in 1898 when she was 19. Sargent was the most celebrated and fashionable portraitist of the ‘Gilded Age’ (c.1860–1900) and painted many prominent figures in Europe and America. He drew on the characteristics 18th-century ‘swagger’ portraits by artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, but reinterpreted them for a new age.

Six years after the portrait was painted, Daisy married Henry Howard, 19th Earl of Suffolk. She came to live in Britain at Charlton Park. Daisy was one of many so called ‘Dollar Princesses’ – American heiresses who married into the British aristocracy in this period. On her death at the age of 89, Daisy left a will which made it possible for a selection of paintings from the Howard family’s ancestral collection to be given to the nation. Known today as the Suffolk Collection, these can be seen on the first floor at Kenwood.

Overlooking London’s Hampstead Heath since the early 17th century, Kenwood House was transformed in the 18th century into a grand neoclassical villa. Now restored to its Georgian splendour, Kenwood is home to a world-famous art collection.