Frances Graham by Tilly Kettle (1735–1786), c1774
Mughal emeralds and natural affection

 

 

 

 

Beth Richards

 

 

 

The illustrations are of works by Tilly Kettle (1735–1786) unless otherwise stated

1 Frances Graham by, c1774. Oil on canvas, 124 x 99 cm. Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

 

 

There is new evidence that Frances Graham is wearing Mughal emerald and pearl bead bracelets in Tilly Kettle’s 1774 portrait (Pl 1).^[1] Moreover, the bracelets are rare examples of unadulterated Mughal jewellery.^[2] Kettle was the first artist to paint in oils in India, and he was more than capable of depicting the numerous jewels worn by notable figures such as Muhammad Ali Khan, the Nawab of Arcot (Pl 2).^[3]

 

 

2 Muhammad Ali Khan, the Nawab of Arcot, c1769–1771. Oil on canvas, 109.2 x 88.9 cm. Norfolk Museums Service

 

 

Frances Graham’s portrait is one of three, the others being of her brothers John and George Edward, and they are believed to be the only pictures Kettle painted of children in India (Pl 3, Pl 4).^[4] In India and British Portraiture 1770–1825, Mildred Archer includes portraits of the parents, John and Mary Graham (Pl 5, Pl 6), but not of the children.^[5]

 

 

3 John Graham, A greyhound at his side, c1774–6. Oil on canvas, 149 x 102 cm. Private collection

 

 

 

4 Master George Edward Graham (1771–1834) (later George Edward Graham-Foster-Piggott), c1774.
Oil on canvas, 124 x 99 cm. Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, National Trust

 

 

 

5 John Graham, c1774-6. Oil on canvas, 124 x 99 cm. Whereabouts unknown.
Photo: Heinz Archive and Library, National Portrait Gallery

 

 

 

6 Mrs John Graham, c1773. Oil on canvas, 124.4 x 98.7 cm. Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico

 

 

This article examines wills as documentary evidence to explore how an East India Company (EIC) family might plan its inheritance, while also looking closely at portraits and the objects that a sitter wears.^[6] It also analyses portraits and their associated objects from a social and cultural perspective, in order to understand the link between social relationships, the image, and jewellery, particularly in the case of women and girls.

The emeralds depicted in Frances Graham are products of, or represent aspects of, what is called ‘extractivism’, in this instance the process whereby EIC servants gained corporate and individual capital in India by stripping away natural wealth and physical resources, a phenomenon that is generally viewed within the context of colonialism.^[7] There is insufficient space here to analyse the bracelets in detail within this framework and, instead, I shall situate them within the reciprocal gift-giving culture of the court of the Nawab of Arcot, which is where John Graham acted for the EIC.^[8] Understanding how the gemstones came to belong to his wife and daughter aligns with recent material culture studies concerning women’s lives and their relationship with textiles, accessories and the body, such as The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, 1600–1900.^[9]

 

Recognising emeralds

Frances Graham was four years old when her portrait was created. She was the daughter of John Graham of Kinross and Mary, a wealthy mercantile family from Scotland linked to the British East India Company. John served on the Supreme Council of Calcutta. Frances was the second daughter, which raises questions about her position within the Graham family and how this is reflected in her wearing these emeralds. After Christie’s sold the Graham household portraits, in London on 9 April 1937, Frances’s portrait was separated from the family group. We shall explore how this solitary image fits within the broader collection of family portraits by Kettle of the Grahams and other family portraits by Kettle from the same period.

A first step is to establish that Kettle has painted the gems on view in Frances Graham, ie on the bracelets, specifically as emeralds. Kettle used two shades of green: dark green at the top of the bead and light green on the underside, consistently in both bracelets (Pl 7).

 

 

7 Detail of Frances Graham (Pl 1), close-up of wrists. Oil on canvas, 124 x 99 cm.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Close-up of wrists. Photo: author

 

 

Kettle clearly intends to depict these beads as emeralds especially as they appear in daylight. High-quality emeralds, because of their chemistry, seem to have an ‘inner glow’ caused by fluorescence when UV light excites the chromium atoms inside. The characteristic green of emeralds is a blend of two shades of green – bluish green and yellowish green – as perceived by the human eye. Kettle carefully observed the interaction of daylight with these beads and aimed to portray them using a mix of colours: bluish-green and yellowish green. It is unlikely that colourless beads are depicted because, if that were the case, a bead would need to allow light to pass through, which is impossible when pressed against the skin. The contrast with the pearls further supports the idea that these beads are emeralds, as such a gem combination was popular during this period, especially among ultra-wealthy Mughal families.^[10]

The bracelets, then, are made of pearls with emerald beads as spacers. Frances’s necklace, however, is made of pearls (Pl 8), which were regarded as respectable attire for female members of the gentry.

 

 

8 Detail of Frances Graham (Pl 1), close-up of necklace. Oil on canvas, 124 x 99 cm.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Photo: author

 

 

In the 18th century, women typically wore bracelets on each wrist as every-day, or secondary, jewellery. As it happens, pearl bracelets, a pearl necklace and a pearl clasp (no gems as such) also feature in Mary Graham, which Kettle painted around 1773, a year before her children’s portraits.^[11] Mary, facing to the left, is dressed in Turquerie fashion, including an ermine-lined wrap and a pale blue silk gown. The colour of her dress mimics the blue of her son’s robes, and the pink ribbon tying her hair at the back of her neck makes a connection with the same feature in her daughter’s portrait.

EIC accounts frequently mention ‘India emerald drops’. Diana Scarisbrick in Ancestral Jewels describes an emerald necklace, identified as a Nabob family piece featuring pearls, and a Mughal-carved emerald pendant from around 1720, which shows that this type of jewellery was brought to England from the early 18th century.^[12] Remarkably, it remained unaltered by later family members, reflecting the original context in which it was transported to England. A multi-gem and emerald necklace from 1750, recently sold at Christie’s New York, also illustrates the popular jewellery of the Mughal courts during this period (Pl 9).^[13]

 

 

9 A Mughal Multi-Gem and Emerald Necklace by Christie’s New York, 1750,
‘Magnificent Mughal Jewels: Property from a Royal Collection’, 17 June 2025 (Lot 42)

 

 

Nabobs such as John Graham were controversial figures, returning to Britain with wealth gained in India, as they represented the ‘competing concepts of nation and empire’.^[14] High-value gemstones enabled commercial families comfortably to join the gentry class in British society by wearing jewellery that symbolised inheritable wealth and status.^[15] Such material culture served as a symbol of luxury for EIC officials, who aimed to marry their sons – and especially their daughters – into the aristocracy.^[16]

According to Pointon, wills are both an ‘imaginative as well as legal action’, noting that wills are crucial ‘forms of representation spoken with a female voice, albeit in a patriarchal system’.^[17] At their height, between 1760 and 1779, a third of all inheritance transfers were through the female line.^[18] These statistics remind us of the hazardous nature of EIC service and its negative impact on the health of the men journeying to and living in the subcontinent. As Stone observes, ‘It becomes clear how extraordinarily important a role women played in the transmission of property and seats.’^[19] Mary Graham’s will from 1798 corroborates the continuation of emeralds through the Graham female line.^[20] Mary’s first bequest was to her eldest son and heir, John Graham III, ‘I give and bequeath unto my dear son John Graham my large diamond cluster ring’. Following this:

To my Granddaughter Anna Maria Dashwood [the daughter of her eldest daughter Mary Helen], a pair of pearl earrings strung with emeralds.

She leaves items of family significance to her sons, George Edward^[21] and William, then bequeaths to Frances:

My dear daughter Frances Marsh, a pearl necklace with gold beads and four strings of pearls strung to the same, along with a matching pair of earrings.

Emeralds, which had been passed down within the Graham family, notably went through Frances, who was now married, and were eventually transferred to the youngest female in the Graham family, Anna Maria Dashwood.

The link between the image and the Graham family’s historical records strongly suggests that these bracelets belonged to the family and were not merely props provided by Kettle to suit the sitter. It was part of a female inheritance plan by Mary Graham to pass the emeralds, once worn by her youngest daughter, to the youngest female member of the family, who was Frances’s niece Anna Maria Dashwood, later Marchioness of Ely, who was painted by Lawrence 1805 at the age of 16 (Pl 10).

 

 

10 Anna Maria Dashwood, later Marchioness of Ely by Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), 1805.
Oil on canvas, 89.5 x 69.2 cm. Chicago Art Institute

 

 

As a depiction of a young woman entering adulthood, she would have worn her finest clothes and jewellery, especially when sitting for a renowned artist such as Lawrence. She appears to wear a large emerald set in a brooch pinned to her décolletage while on her right wrist she wears a pearl bracelet with a bead, possibly an emerald, strung within: families re-fashioned and re-strung pieces as fashions changed.^[22] 

Frances became William Marsh’s second wife on 15 November 1794, and their marriage was announced in The Edinburgh Magazine, where she was described as ‘Miss Graham of Epsom’.^[23] In 1788, Mary was living with George Graham (and possibly Frances as well) at Gatton, Reigate, in Surrey, seven miles from Epsom, which had been known as a fashionable spa town known for horse racing since the 17th century. A year later, because of John’s extravagance, the Grahams sold Gatton to Robert Ludbroke.^[24] It is noteworthy that in her will she described herself as a poor widow, suggesting she might have been living in modest circumstances at this stage of her life. She was buried with her husband, John, in the family vault in London. A tenancy record shows that Mary Graham rented Woodcote Place, now known as Westgate House, in Epsom, from 1790 until her death in 1798.^[25] Frances died in 1805. The memorial to Frances Marsh (née Graham) at St Mary Magdalene, Gillingham, Kent, underlines her connections to the EIC through her father, noting that she was born in Bengal.^[26] At this point, Frances’s family took pride in their kinship links to the Company, and her children also ‘inherited excellent fortunes from their mother’.^[27]

 

Significant objects

In the past Frances Graham has been titled ‘A girl with a parrot’ – the parrot being a familiar symbol of Eastern exotica. Meanwhile, the emeralds on her wrists went unrecognised, and their value – and hence significance – was ignored, in which context her leather shoes and muslin or silk dress also evoke the global textile trade that existed between Britain and India. Kettle has depicted the layered effect of the textile in shades of pink and white, highlighting the intricate lace on the close-fitting sleeves. Her arms reach towards a red and green parrot perched on a branch. The silver chain attached to the bird indicates it is a pet; however, Frances’s fingers do not touch the chain. We will explore this dynamic later in the discussion. Frances, in sound, is a unisex name, and without her family portraits to provide context, the sitter has in the past been identified as a boy, partly because of her name but also because of her short hair. Although she wears a pink sash and her brothers wear blue clothes, as Postle notes, ‘the modern convention of “pink for girls, blue for boys” had not yet been fixed, so the colour of the sash is not a reliable indicator of sex’.^[28] The result of this misidentification is that this portrait’s significance to Kettle’s body of domestic portraiture has been diminished.

While Persians and Ottomans esteemed emeralds, the Mughals treasured them the most, with the Royal Treasuries of India holding large quantities for trade or exchange.^[29] In Islamic culture, green symbolised the palms of Paradise and the lush pastures that the Prophet Mohammed traversed. Emerald mining began in the jungles of Colombia, then a Spanish colony known as New Granada, and their value rose quickly as the stones became increasingly rare. The emeralds reached the Indian subcontinent via Goa and the Portuguese.^[30] Mughals cut emeralds into beads with a hole drilled through the centre, focusing on preserving the stone’s most substantial part (see Pl 8).^[31] From the 17th century, Jewish merchants in London exported emeralds to Madras on EIC ships in exchange for diamonds.^[32] As external adornment, jewellery for Indian women acted to assert their social positions, as well as those of their husbands and families.^[33] Images of noble women wearing emeralds and pearls are frequently depicted in miniatures from the 17th to the 18th century.^[34] Frances’s emerald and pearl bracelets are most likely made from Colombian emerald beads and pearls from the Persian Gulf.

It is possible to examine the context and environment in which John and Mary would have acquired such stones – and also how they met Kettle. As members of the Scottish elite, John Graham and his brother Thomas arrived in India during the 1760s.^[35] They had an older half-brother, George, who joined the others. They secured contracts by supplying troops to Bengal, engaging in a wide range of private trade, and holding significant amounts of EIC stocks and shares. They were the sons of John Graham of Kernoc, a merchant from Edinburgh, and owed their patronage to the London merchants and bankers Sir William Mayne (later Baron Newhaven) and Robert Mayne, their wealthy uncles.^[36] The closeness of the family is demonstrated by the fact that, while in India, the couple’s eldest daughter, Mary Helen, remained in the care of William and his wife in London. Moreover, in 1774, William purchased the manors of Gatton and Upper Gatton, described as ‘complete pocket boroughs’, and gained control of both seats. Between William and Robert, from 1774 to 1786, they became MPs exerting EIC influence or Nabobery in parliament, and in 1786, William transferred Gatton Park, the estate, to the Grahams of Kinross.^[37]

Gemstones such as diamonds and emeralds were probably presented to John Graham during a customary gift-giving ceremony at the Nawab’s court. A gouache painting of 1795 represents the continuation of the close physical engagement between a Resident, in this case Sir John Hadley D’Oyly, and an Indian ruler Nawab Mubarak al-Daula of Murshidabad (1770-93) (Pl 11).

 

 

11 Nawab Mubarak al-Daula of Murshidabad (1770-93) enthroned in durbar, with British Resident, Sir John Hadley D’Oyly, and the Nawab’s son, Babur ‘Ali, anonymous, 1795. Gouache on paper, 41.3 x 56.5 cm. Victoria & Albert Museum

 

 

Dressed in European clothing, but notably wearing Persian slippers, D’Oyly sits on a blue chair and holds hands with the Nawab, who sits cross-legged on a courtly sofa. These significant engagements were rooted in Islamic gift-exchange traditions, where items such as clothing, gemstones, and high-status objects like horses were exchanged. These objects could carry deep meanings related to the physical incorporation of the host’s body.^[38] The British in turn offered desirable handcrafted items from London jewellers, including clocks and jewellery.^[39] (Gemstones also served as portable wealth that could be transported to Britain at a time when bank accounts were not yet established, and transferring money home could be a challenging task.)

Kettle arrived in Madras with letters of recommendation from Admiral Cornish and Laurence Sulivan, who encouraged him ‘to paint Asians as well as Europeans’.^[40] Sulivan used the Royal Society of Arts as a forum to discuss the arts and crafts he had brought back from India, alongside his appreciation of Persian art. After two years in the south of the subcontinent, Kettle moved north to Bengal, where he met the Grahams. Mary, née Shewen, was a ward of Laurence Sulivan, and she and John married in 1762. Sulivan was an MP and Chairman of the EIC with links to Warren Hastings, the governor-general of Bengal. The direct connection between Sulivan, one of Kettle’s sponsors, and Mary and her husband led to John being described as ‘one of his [Kettle’s] most assiduous patrons in Bengal’.^[41] Kettle was commissioned to paint seven portraits of family members, a powerful example of the Scottish elite’s extending patronage to Kettle in India.^[42]

The years 1773 to 1776 were particularly significant to the Graham family. First, the British government introduced the 1773 Regulating Act to curb company executives’ excessive receipt of ‘presents’ or high-value gifts, which had generated fortunes for, among others, Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey.^[43] Secondly, John Graham left India due to ill health in 1775, accompanying Sulivan home as one of Hastings’s secretaries.^[44] Thirdly, John’s death in 1776 and Mary’s subsequent widowhood. John died at the age of 35 near Majorca on a voyage from Marseilles to Lisbon, and he was buried in the Church of St Peter Le Poer in Broad Street, City of London.^[45] While John may have left India because of poor health, the Act’s introduction marked the end of the early mercantilism of the EIC in India and may have been a factor in the decision to include the emeralds in Frances’s portrait.

The concept of commodification is crucial to understanding the commissioning motivations behind the Graham family portraiture and any objects they chose to include in their pictorial compositions. According to the historian PJ Marshall:

The largest fortune made at Burdwan was probably that of John Graham, who appears to have had £70,000 [approx. 12.2 million] awaiting remittance home when he was at the point of leaving India in 1774 with £25,000 [approx. 4.4 million] already at home in Britain to be used in buying an estate in England.^[46]

In his 1776 will, John apportioned £10,000 to each of his children, approximately £1.8 million in total, excluding his heir, John, who received £30,000, roughly £5.2 million.^[47] How did his will reflect his patronage of Kettle and his commissioning of family portraits? Notably, John highlighted the difference in fortunes between his heir and other family members through the sizes of the portraits he commissioned from Kettle. The portrait of his heir, the younger John, was framed in an opulent Rococo style and was the largest in the family group. The six other paintings he commissioned of himself, Mary, and his other children and relatives were all smaller in size. Kettle, as the first British artist working with oils in India, actively promoted this innovative canvas size. These small full-length portraits were intended for domestic spaces and could easily be transported back to Britain on an EIC ship and onwards to family estates.

 

Kettle’s family portraiture

Kettle depicted the younger John Graham, and George Edward Graham wearing hybridised Western-style long jackets with blue lapels and a long jama (Indian-style robe) made from the same patterned silk that we see in their sister’s portrait. In John Graham’s portrait, he stands with a greyhound, a dog described as a ‘prop of aristocratic leisure’ which was often included in portraits to symbolise (or, perhaps we could say, enhance) status.^[48] In his brother George Edward’s portrait, Kettle has painted a miniature white poodle playfully pulling at the hat on the ground. In this image, the nest of birds in his hand signifies good fortune, with the eggs representing renewal and the potential for life.

In 1772, a year before Mary Graham’s portrait, Kettle painted Portrait of a Boy (a son of Shuja-Ud-Daula, Nawab Vizier of Oudh?) (Pl 12). By this stage of his career, he had moved north and was working at the renowned court of Shuja-ud-Daula in Faizabad.

 

 

12 Portrait of a boy (A son of Shuja-ud-Daula, Nawab Vizier of Oudh?) Son of Nawab, 1772.
Oil on canvas, 89 x 69 cm. Whereabouts unknown. Photo: Heinz Archive and Library, National Portrait Gallery

 

 

We observe the innovative compositional narrative he employs, the use of vibrant primary colours, the direct frontal gaze, and the evident delight in the individuality of the child depicted. The boy’s attire reflects key features of the Graham brothers’ clothing and shows a hybrid garment that combines Eastern and Western elements, featuring a fitted jacket paired with a neckerchief and a wide skirt, like the jama worn by male members of his family. Meanwhile, the landscape and the spaniel suggest a quintessentially English scene. Conversely, the colour palette is vibrant, linking the boy to the East Indian symbolism of the multicoloured parrot on his right arm, which is attached to a chain he holds in his left hand. On the one hand, the parrot is clearly the boy’s pet: it has, after all, been included in the painting. Yet, on the other, the parrot had a complex symbolism, as it represents long-standing East Indian beliefs that regard birds as symbols of purity, especially those associated with children. The parrot often appears in Indo-Iranian culture as a messenger of moral wisdom, on account of its ability to speak.^[49]

While portraits of Frances and her brothers feature dogs, she is the only family member depicted with a bird. Her parrot has red plumage on its head and back, a curved yellow beak, green wings with a yellow flash at the top, green legs, and a green tail tip. It has been identified as either a male Australian King parrot or a Chattering Lory (Lorius garrulus) from Indonesia.^[50] The Chattering Lory, a medium-sized parrot, is renowned for its high level of playfulness and energy and its fondness for social interaction and mimicry would have made it an ideal pet for Frances. Parrots and parakeets were rare and exotic accessories in an active world of pet and bird keeping, where canaries predominated among all sectors of metropolitan society.^[51] As a traditional motif in art, they symbolised worldliness and global connection, reflecting the mercantile and commercial currents of London’s growing global economy during this period.^[52] Similarly, parrots were regarded as exotic in India, and European travellers and merchants, mainly from the upper classes, considered parrots the most desirable of domestic pets.^[53] As valuable commodities, caged parrots accompanied EIC servants to England (on EIC vessels)s to their British estates.

For comparison, let us briefly examine Kettle’s Colonel John Fortnum and Family, 1775 (Pl 13).^[54] Fortnum, whose family established the grocers Fortnum and Mason in London, was wealthy enough from his time in India to commission Kettle to paint this family group portrait.

 

 

13 Colonel John Fortnum and Family by Tilly Kettle (1735–1786), c1775.
Oil on canvas, 228.6 x 167.6 cm. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston

 

 

Kettle expertly handled the complex dynamics of multiple figures within the domestic setting. Fortnum’s straightforward frontal gaze aligns with Kettle’s portrayal of company men. His personality is clearly conveyed and his wearing his EIC uniform refers to the source of his wealth. Kettle offers a view of an EIC family actively engaging with contemporary, metropolitan ideas about children, ‘natural motherhood’, and the family, and there are some motifs common to this work and Frances Graham. While the young girls’ dresses are similar, Jane’s silk is plain, whereas Frances’s features embroidery.^[55] Fortnum’s younger daughter, positioned to the left of the arrangement, is depicted with a green parrot on her wrist and pearl bracelets. The pearl bracelets contain no gemstones such as emeralds (as in the case of Frances). Jane’s wrists bend downwards, keeping the bird and our focus within the pictorial frame as she meets her mother’s gaze. In contrast, standing alone in nature, Frances’s hands are open as she allows the parrot to roam freely with the chain hanging loosely, possibly symbolising her transition into womanhood and marriage.^[56] 

 

Transcultural natural affection?

Did ‘natural affection’ and the display of affluence coexist within the extended kinship group of EIC servants and their families, and how was the commissioning of art part of this? EIC families lived in close proximity, typically near the capital, socialised together, and often married within their own social circle. The Grahams followed another well-established pattern in purchasing an estate in the Home Counties. The investment in emerald and pearl bracelets for their daughter’s portrait, dated around 1773–1774, suggests that John and Mary aimed to create a visual record of his service and their life in India, with specific motifs for their youngest daughter. Additionally, it carries connotations of John and Mary’s marriage as one of genuine emotion and Joanne Bailey describes it as an indication of the parent-child relationship changing to ‘mother-father-child [as] a loving triad’ – with a focus on the child. The mother moves ‘centre stage and fathers lighten up’.^[57] Edward Alcock’s Mrs Mary Morgan, c1770, helps us understand how a young child might spend time with her mother in her bedroom, or boudoir, standing beside her skirts as she prepared for the day (Pl 14).

 

 

14 Mrs Mary Morgan by Edward Alcock (d 1778), c1770.
Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 61 cm. Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea

 

 

Sitting at her dressing table, Mary Morgan offers her child a cherry from a basket. On the dressing table, there is a variety of vanity items (one of the boxes is likely a patch box or snuff box), including a pearl necklace. As viewers, we are invited into this world of maternal status and affection between the child and her mother. Contextually, the jewellery, as seen in the relationship between Frances’s bracelets and her mother, functions as a form of inheritance between mother and daughter.

Tensions arose during a period when sensibility was central to society and culture, and it influenced Kettle’s artistic work. In the 18th century, society debated the relationship between moral virtue or reasoning and its compatibility with natural emotions – whether natural affections were ‘kept in proper proportions’ or related to ‘the role of natural emotions in moral reasoning and action’. Emotions such as compassion and sentiment play a positive role in morals by motivating action and guiding individuals towards specific ‘good objects’, such as a child. Joseph Butler viewed passions and affections as optimistic advocates of morality, encouraging good behaviour.^[58] Frances’s parents actively participated in good parenting by commissioning a portrait of their younger daughter. Displaying ‘natural affection’ signified that they upheld a virtuous approach to her moral upbringing. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke stated that children were a blank slate, with the human mind lacking preconceived ideas. Similarly, Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarded them as ‘uncorrupted beings of nature’. Rousseau’s Emile, ou de l’éducation, emphasised the benefits of a simple outdoor upbringing rather than traditional academic learning.^[59] Such philosophies shaped the new stylistic and compositional portrayal of family life as an energetic experience, reflecting the broader ideals of the Enlightenment, particularly the concept of sensibility.

Two ideas in 18th-century social philosophy help us understand the conflicting symbolism created by the emeralds that we have identified in Frances Graham. Love, affection and, particularly, virtue were associated with economic support in the 18th century. Katie Barclay notes that the transfer of property is linked to the concept of ‘natural affection’ in the history of emotions during that period,^[60] while portraiture was intended to express a parent’s physical and financial sentiments.^[61] Demonstrating ‘natural affection’ meant adopting a virtuous approach to her moral development. Frances dressed this way to play and act as a ‘child’. As an emotional gesture, commissioning a child’s portrait allowed parents to document their child’s physical traits and personality. Legally, it formalised the patriarchal transfer of property. It displayed parental love through the provisions made for younger children. During a time of increasing commercialisation, this became even more significant as it helped to maintain social order and to curb greed among family members. 

As King and Neal observe, ‘The child was to become the central focus of an educated aristocracy eager to demonstrate their progressive and liberal views through their public image and the works of art they commissioned.’^[62] Similarly, Larry Woolf notes, ‘The Enlightenment found the essence of the childlike quality of children in the way that the visual appearance of the child elicited a profound emotional response from the gaze of the adult.’^[63] Frances’s portrait, its format, and the inclusion of significant objects such as the emerald beads reflect this cultural shift, where transmitting property was seen as part of ‘natural affection’.

Questions arise. As a luxury item of global significance, did including emeralds in Frances’s mark them as symbols of childhood or femininity? Multiple interpretations are possible. ‘Emeralds mediated relationships’ because, as Lane argues, the stones were ‘increasingly sucked into the realm of royal gift exchange’.^[64] It was Frances’s father who gained this wealth through this system of exchange. Conversely, the conspicuous consumption, luxury, and excess of the Georgian era fostered considerable cultural anxiety, as the moral fabric of England seemed to be under threat. Moreover, Frances’s mother, Mary, displayed ‘excessive luxury’ by wearing an ermine-lined robe in her portrait by Kettle.

Returning to our earlier discussion, while Mary Graham, as a widow, served as the family’s custodian, her retirement to Epsom demonstrates her reliance on family as she aged. Her elder son, John, spent his father’s enormous inheritance, leading to the sale of the family seat at Gatton, in Reigate, Surrey, with the leading role in the family passing to his father’s younger brother, Thomas.^[65] John, once a playmate of the Prince Regent, remained unmarried and became a diamond trader in The Hague. Significantly, Kettle’s large portrait of John from 1783 depicts him as an English country gentleman with a shotgun and spaniel at Gatton (the estate was not sold until six years later and the portrait demonstrates the artist’s continued patronage by the Graham family) (Pl 15).

 

 

15 John Graham, son of John Graham, 1783. Oil on canvas, 1.27 x 1.016 cm.
Whereabouts unknown. Photo: Heinz Archive and Library, National Portrait Gallery

 

 

A portrait of Mary Helen Graham, arguably commissioned at this time and before her marriage, depicts her wearing a white muslin dress, cut low at the neck, with her hair powdered and styled high; the clothing and hair were fashionable for the 1780s.^[66] While Flinn and Smith discuss the ‘material manifestations of patience, sociability, and connections important to understanding of elite masculinity in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Britain’, the Grahams displayed a lack of patience in hastily acquiring property and art in order to establish their family’s status for their return to Britain. Although it was not to last, Gatton Park did, however, provide the widowed Mary with a short-lived ‘family project’ that aligned with their idea of members reconnecting and fostering a sense of belonging. Frances’s portrait would have hung in this space, a significant presence, before being moved to Mary’s rented properties in Epsom.^[67]

 

 

 

 

1. Thank you to Nicola Coleby, Creative Programme Manager, Royal Pavilion Museums Trust, Brighton and Hove Museums Trust, for allowing me access to the curatorial file for the painting in 2016 and latterly, during 2021 to the painting itself. ↑
2. SJH Symposium 2025 – Beads 28 June 2025, where I presented a paper ‘Mughal Emerald and Pearl Bracelets: In a C18 British Child’s Portrait’. This identification was made as a response to my paper. I thank the Society for their input into my research. ↑
3. Mildred Archer, India and British Portraiture 1770–1825, London 1979, contents. Tilly Kettle was in India from June 1769–March 1776. ↑
4. Ellis Waterhouse, British 18th Century Painters in Oils and Crayons, London 1981, p205. ↑
5. Archer, pp87–8. ↑
6. Marcia Pointon, Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation in English visual culture 1665–1800, London 1997. ↑
7. Nick Robins, The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational, London 2012, p104. For extractivism related to the EIC see, Nicholas Hoover Wilson, ‘The State in Disguise of a Merchant’: Extractive Administration in British India, 1784–1834’, Berkeley 2007. ↑
8. Douglas Fordham, ‘Costume Dramas: British Art in the Court of the Marathas’, Representations, vol 101, no. 1 (Winter 2008), pp57–85, p65. For a fuller discussion of gifting and artistic practice in Northern India see Natasha Eaton, ‘Critical Cosmopolitanism: Gifting and Collecting Art at Lucknow, 1775–97’, in Art and the British Empire, Manchester 2009, Timothy Barringer, Geoff Quilley and Douglas Fordham, eds, pp189–204. For gift–giving in a domestic context see Margot Finn, ‘Colonial Gifts: Family Politics and the Exchange of Goods in British India. c. 1780–1820,’ Modern Asian Studies, vol 40, no. 1 (2006), pp203–231. Also, Margot Finn and Kate Smith, eds, The East India Company at Home, London 2018, and Kate Prior and John Adamson, Maharajas’ Jewels, Paris 2000, p91. ↑
9. Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux, The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, 1600–1900, New Haven and London 2020. ↑
10. I thank Dr Tehmina Goskar, MA FMA Cert. GA, for her gemmological analysis of the painted emeralds in the portrait. ↑
11. I thank the Curatorial Department at Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico, for access to the curatorial file of Mrs John Graham by Tilly Kettle (1735–1786), c1773. Oil on canvas, 124.4 x 98.7 cm. ↑
12. Diana Scarisbrick, Ancestral Jewels, London: Andre Deutsch Ltd, p54. ↑
13. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6539437?ldp_breadcrumb=back [accessed: 11 November 2025] ↑
14. Chris Jeppson, ‘Growing up in a Company Town: The East India Company presence in South Hertfordshire’, Chapter 12, pp251–71, in Margot Finn and Kate Smith, eds, The East India Company at Home 1757–1857, London 2018, p254. Jeppson is quoting Tillman Nechtman, Nabobs: Empire and Identity in Eighteenth–Century Britain, Cambridge 2010. ↑
15. Scarisbrick, p54. For examples of altered jewellery from India by EIC families see Susan Stronge, Tipu’s Tigers, London 2009, p52–3. ↑
16. Scarisbrick, p52. Family prestige was, she tells us, particularly at stake when the bride of the eldest son was given an audience by Royalty and the court and her dress would be assessed. ↑
17. Pointon 1997, p2. ↑
18. Lawrence Stone and Jeanne Fawtier Stone, An Open Elite: England 1540–1880, Oxford 1995, p73. Indirect inheritance by or through females was approximately 10 per cent of all transfers by inheritance up to 1700. ↑
19. Lawrence and Stone, p73. ↑
20. National Archives, PROB/11/1308/59 Will of Mary Graham of Epsom, Surrey, 8 June 1795. ↑
21. I thank Dr Jane Eades, East of England, National Trust, United Kingdom, for giving me access to the curatorial file for Tilly Kettle’s portrait of George Edward. ↑
22. Scarisbrick, p172. Transformations, jewels are generally broken up and reset as fashions change. Stronge, pp52–3. ↑
23. Louisa Graeme, Orr and Sable: A Book of the Graemes and Grahams, Edinburgh: William Brown, 1903, p399. ↑
24. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/constituencies/gatton [accessed 12 November 2025). ↑
25. John Parsloe, Woodcote Green House: And Other Houses in Epsom, 2008, p44. ↑
26. Memorial of Frances Marsh (nee Graham), St Mary Magdalene Church, Gillingham, Kent. https://jjhc.info/marshgeorge1800stmary [accessed: 11 November 2025]. ↑
27. Graeme, p45. ↑
28. Martin Postle and Amina Wright, Pictures of Innocence: Portraits of Children from Hogarth to Lawrence, exh cat., Bath 2005, p35. ↑
29. In the portrait of the Nawab of Arcot remains of red and green suggest rubies and emeralds. Such gemstones, along with diamonds, white jade, rock crystal, and pearls, were among the most treasured stones. Specific stones were believed to carry amuletic properties when worn near certain parts of the body. https://www.museumscollections.norfolk.gov.uk/collections-object-page?id=NWHCM%20:%201939.144 [accessed 12 November 2025]. ↑
30. Kris Lane, Colour of Paradise: Emeralds in the Age of Gun powder Empire, New Haven 2010, p xii. ↑
31. John Benjamin, Starting to Collect Antique Jewellery, London 1999, p19; Hugh Tait, ed, 7000 Years of Jewellery, London 2007, pp173–74; Oppi Untracht, Traditional Jewellery of India, London 1997. ↑
32. Lane, p xiii. ↑
33. Nirad Chaudhuri, Culture in the Vanity Bag, Mumbai 2010, p32. ↑
34. A miniature from the Small Clive Album shows a noble lady from the 17th century wearing necklaces of emeralds and pearls. Artist/maker: unknown. Painting, late C17. Opaque watercolour, print, paper, gold. Small Clive Album, p110. 22.5 x 16.6 cm. IS.48:55/B-1956. V&A.https://www.vandaimages.com/2006AN5324-A-lady-in-a-pavilion-at-night-from-the-Small-Clive.html [accessed 12 November 2025]. ↑
35. George McGilvary, East India Patronage and the British State: The Scottish Elite and Politics in the Eighteenth Century, London 2020, p167. ↑
36. McGilvary, p167. ↑
37. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/constituencies/gatton [accessed 4/11/2025] Mary to Geo. Graham, 25 Nov. 1787, 9 Feb. 1788, Kinross House Pprs., NLS. ↑
38. Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, Princeton NJ and Chichester, West Sussex 1996, p18. ↑
39. Marcia Pointon, Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery, New Haven and London 2004, pp206 Pointon 1997, p7. In the 1770s, James Cox, a London jeweller specialised in the export of ‘sing–songs’, elaborate mechanical toys and jewelled clocks to India and China. ↑
40. George McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of Laurence Sulivan, London 2020, p213. ↑
41. Graham Various, Male. Heinz Archive and Library, NPG. Portrait of John Graham, as a boy, full–length, in Indian dress, holding a garland of flowers around the neck of a greyhound by Tilly Kettle, Christie’s London, British Picture, 18 April 1996, Lot 23 [accessed 2 February 2023]. ↑
42. Christie’s, London, 9 April 1937, Lot 42. The property of Commander RD Graham, of Stawell House, Bridgewater, Somerset. Sale catalogue p2 of 2. Heinz Archive and Library, NPG. [accessed 2 February 2023]. ↑
43. Robins, p105. ↑
44. McGilvary, The Guardian of the East India Company, p222. Sulivan and Graham were to help defend Hastings against a political attack in December by John Johnstone and Nathanial Smith. ↑
45. Graeme, p599. ↑
46. Peter Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford 1976, p244. ↑
47. National Archives, PROB 11-1024-148 Will of John Graham in the Kingdom of Bengal of St James Westminster, Middlesex, 19 October 1776. ↑
48. See Richard Peers Symons, MP (later Baronet) by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), 1770–1771. Oil on canvas, 237.5 x 146.1 cm. Cincinnati Art Museum. ↑
49. Richard Verdi, The Parrot in Art: From Durer to Elizabeth Butterworth, London 2007, p13. ↑
50. Thank you to Roger J Federer for the identification of Frances’s parrot. ↑
51. Joseph Forshaw, Parrots of the World, London 2010, p19. ↑
52. Ingrid Tague, Animal Companions: Pets and Social Change in Eighteenth–Century Britain, Pennsylvania 2015, p17. ↑
53. Christopher Plumb, The Georgian Menageries: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth–Century, London and New York 2015, p209. ↑
54. I thank Sara Craig at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA for access to the curatorial file of Kettle’s Fortnum painting. ↑
55. Aileen Ribeiro, The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England 1730 to 1790, and Its Relation to Fancy Dress in Portraiture, New York and London 1984, p135. From the 1760s, as childhood clothing conventionally adopted the shortened muslin dress, younger girls, like Jane and Frances, wore their hair with a fringe. ↑
56. Ribeiro, p265. Ribeiro refers to the description of the style of dress the girls wear in the prints in the correspondence of Samuel Richardson from 1748 ‘describing an allegory of art and Nature in which Nature is depicted’. ↑
57. Joanne Bailey, ‘Family Relationships’ in A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Age of Enlightenment, vol 4, eds Elizabeth Foyster and James Martin, London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney 2014, p24. ↑
58. Sarah Moses, ‘“Keeping the Heart”: Natural Affection in Joseph Butler’s Approach to Virtue’, The Journal of Religious Ethics, vol 37, no. 4 (December 2009), pp613–4. See also Kate Retford, The Art of Domestic Life, New Haven and London 2006, pp10–2. ↑
59. King and Neale, pp5–7. ↑
60. Katie Barclay, ‘Natural Affection. The Patriarchal Family and the “Strict Settlement” Debate’, The Eighteenth Century, vol 58, no. 3 (Fall 2017), Special Issue: Emotion, Affect, and the Eighteenth Century, pp309–20. ↑
61. Retford, pp 101–2. ↑
62. King and Neale, p8. ↑
63. Larry Woolf, ‘Childhood and the Enlightenment: The Complications of Innocence’, in The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World, London and New York 2013, ed Paula Fass, p85. ↑
64. Lane, p xiii. ↑
65. Archer, pp214–6. Thomas Graham of Kinross by Thomas Hickey (1741–1822), c1790. Oil on canvas, 78.7 x 63.5 cm. Yale Center for British Art. ↑
66. The location of this painting is currently unknown. Heinz archive. Sale catalogue description. For dress of this period see, Aileen Ribeiro, Dress in Eighteenth–century Europe, 1715–1789, London 1984, p157. ↑
67. Finn and Smith, p173. ↑