Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of The Honourable Mrs. Graham is perhaps his most recognizable, due to the timeless beauty of the sitter.

She's a favorite on historical romance novel covers, and was even recreated for a 1950s bra commercial.  In fact, Mary Graham’s own story is fodder enough for a Philippa Gregory drugstore romance…with a bit of girl-on-girl action thrown in, and an Edgar Allan Poe twist.

She was born Mary Cathcart in 1757 to Scottish ambassador parents in the glittering and obscene Russian Court of Catherine The Great.  The notorious excesses of the so-called “Wicked Empress” did not rub off on Mary, who returned to England a mild and modest teenager ripe for the marriage market.  The lucky bachelor who won her hand was Scotsman Thomas Graham, a veritable eighteenth-century Tom Cruise Jumping on Oprah’s couch in his love struck devotion for his young bride (minus creepy religious cult and gay rumors, of course).  He once road ninety miles in the pouring rain, swapping out horses pony express style to fetch her jewelry box in time for a ball. 

Despite this true love match, Mary caught the eye of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, an ancestor of Princess Diana who was equally famous in her own time for her outrageous fashion, binge drinking, drug use, colorful sex life and gambling addiction.  Georgiana also had a weakness for beautiful women, and a passionate friendship with Mary developed into an intense emotional affair.  Georgiana’s allegedly bisexual affections were even linked to Marie Antoinette, and she later replaced Mary Graham with Lady Bess Foster with whom she lived in a kinky ménage a trios with her husband (this arrangement was the subject of the 2008 film The Duchess starring Keira Knightly).  But the spurned Mary always remained close to the woman her biographer called “the love of her life," though she was still married to poor Thomas.

Always something of a wilting violet, Mary wasted away from consumption and died at sea in French waters en route to a warmer climate for her health.  A heartbroken Thomas tried to escort his wife’s body across France, but a rowdy band of French Revolutionaries set upon them. He watched in horror as they broke into Mary’s casket and molested her corpse.  Thomas never recovered from the trauma.  He hung white muslin over the portrait because he could no longer stand to look at her face, and spent the rest of his life on a vengeful crusade to kill as many Frenchmen as possible in the bloody wars that followed. 

The painting remained veiled in obscurity for half a century until it was rediscovered by Mary’s descendants and donated to the National Gallery of Scotland, on the condition that it never leave Scottish soil.  Now the girl who was born and died in hostile foreign lands rests in her own beloved country.