Portrait of a Young Woman in a Turban, Holding a Letter

This portrait represents a fashionably attired subject leaning informally on a low wall in a park. She is dressed “à la turque,” with a turban and aigrette, and adorned with pearls, offering the artist further opportunities to explore the qualities and surfaces of tones of white. Her turban may be derived from an illustration in Thomas Jefferys’ A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations of 1757.