Signed and dated 'Russell R A pt./ 1790', this pastel by John Russell RA (1745–1806) depicts Lady Henrietta Elizabeth Cavendish, younger daughter of William, fifth Duke of Devonshire, aged five – later Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville (1785–1862). Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790 as Portrait of a young lady of quality, and again at the Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, in 1908.

Russell was industrious, and even today his portraits are not rare; however, very few are as well-preserved as this one, which has suffered neither losses (where pastel falls away from the paper) nor unsightly discolouration of pigments. As the fragile nature of pastel does not lend itself to restoration, surviving examples are very much as one finds them – and every detail here remains crisp, with Russell's lively draughtsmanship visible throughout.

The sitter descended from one of the great Whig aristocratic families of Georgian Britain, and the painting's provenance runs in an unbroken chain from the sitter herself, through the Leveson-Gower and Wertheimer collections, to the Earls of Granard. It is published in Neil Jeffares's standard reference, the Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 (2006), p.449.

Collectors of Georgian aristocratic portraiture, the Cavendish/Devonshire family, and scholarly-catalogued pastel work will find this an exceptional, fully documented example of Russell's Royal Academy practice.