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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Godfrey Knellerca. 1720

Yale Center for British Art

Yale Center for British Art
New Haven, CT, United States

The essayist, poet, and medical activist Lady Mary Wortley Montagu appears here in an outfit she called her "Turkish habit," which includes a headdress and an ermine shawl. This is one of several portraits of Montagu by the Anglo-German artist Godfrey Kneller in which she is similarly dressed. Her appearance inspired the vogue for Ottoman-influenced clothing, known as Turquerie, within British aristocratic circles. Between 1716 and 1718, Montagu lived in Constantinople, now Istanbul, where her husband served as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. She observed how local women inoculated children against smallpox, a devastating viral disease that she had earlier survived but to which her brother had succumbed. Montagu had this treatment administered to her own children and, although it was initially controversial, convinced others in Britain to do the same. Through her pioneering advocacy, inoculation eventually became commonplace in eighteenth-century Britain.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022

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  • Title: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
  • Creator: Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1646–1723, German, active in Britain (from 1676)
  • Creator Lifespan: 1646/1723
  • Creator Nationality: German, active in Britain (from 1676)
  • Creator Gender: male
  • Date Created: ca. 1720
  • Physical Dimensions: 35 1/8 x 27 1/4 inches (89.2 x 69.2 cm)
  • Subject Keywords: costume, unfinished, woman, portrait
  • External Link: See this work of art on the Yale Center for British Art website
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Repository Name: Yale Center for British Art
  • Credit Line: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Yale Center for British Art

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