Framed pastel drawing of Maria Salter (Mrs Pierrepont) which forms a pair with that of her husband, Captain (later Rear-Admiral) William Pierrepont; see PAJ2899.

The Salters were a family of Shropshire origin, Maria being second daughter of Captain Elliot Salter RN (d.1790). She was born at West End House, Stoke [Poges] 'near Windsor' in 1777 or 1778, which the Salters owned from 1660 to 1828. She married Captain William Pierrepont on 28 March 1797 at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London, and they had five children, all born at his estate of Farley Hill (later renamed Unsted Park), Bramley, near Godalming in Surrey. Of these only the eldest (Anne Sumner, bap. 1802) and the youngest (Henry Bennett, b. 1810) reached adulthood. Anne married John Uniacke (later mayor of Chester in 1839 and 1840) at St Swithin's, Walcot, Bath, in June 1823: she died at Clifton, Bristol, in 1862. William, born 5 May 1803, died in 1819 at Queen's Square, Bath, aged 15. Charles was born in 1806 and Maria, the second daughter, in 1809: their father died at Farley Hill in August 1813 and when they also died there, respectively on 27 April and 29 June 1814, they were buried with him at St Peter's and St Paul's, Godalming, and their names added to his monument in the church.

In July 1814, under the terms of Pierrepont's will, Farley Hill was sold at auction for just over £18,800 (to the political economist Hutches Trower) and Maria, with her three surviving children moved to Bath. Probably between William's death in 1819 and Anne's marriage in 1823, she moved to 12 Gay Street, where the 1841 and 1851 census returns show neighbours of similar independent means or 'gentlemanly professions'. (Gay Street, in the central Walcot area of Bath, is the short hill rising from Queen's Square to The Circus: i.e., a very respectable central address at the time, physically little changed today.)

She died there on 29 February 1864, leaving 'effects under £1500', with her son Henry being sole executor. He took a BA at New College, Oxford, in 1833 and by 1834 was living at Laywell House, just outside Brixham, which survives and remained his occasional residence. In April that year, however, he inherited the nearly 1800-acre Ryhall estate in Rutland from his paternal uncle, Michael Pierrepont (1763 -1834). Henry married Elizabeth Fritzweed Wilson at St James Piccadilly, on 6 September 1842 and was himself High Sheriff of Rutland in 1845, though by the time of his mother's death in 1864 he was living at Seagry House, Chippenham, Wilts. He was a JP and a Deputy Lieutenant of Rutland and died at his London home, 41 Eaton Square, from influenza on 17 March 1892, aged 81. His personal estate was then given as £22,326 and death notices described him as 'formerly of Seagry House, Chippenham, and late of Ryhall, Rutland and 41 Eaton Square'; also as 'of Ryhall...and Laywell, South Devon'.

Russell was the leading pastel portraitist of his time and this example does full justice to the beauty of his auburn-haired, blue-eyed sitter. Probably done when she was about 23 - and possibly pregnant with her daughter Anne - she is shown seated by a window to her left (viewer's right), facing forward but with her head turned towards it, in a fine white Indian muslin day dress. Her right elbow rests on a red cushion on a marble-topped gilded console table against the adjacent wall, the lower arm elegantly falling towards her lap where her hand supports and marks the place in a temporarily neglected book. The left hand, with a plain gold wedding band, also rests on her lap by the book and her only other jewellery is a pair of simple gold earrings (only one visible). A rich red curtain matching the cushion partly fills the window-niche behind her and the window itself looks out onto a summer parkland setting. The technical brilliance of the composition lies in how the sitter's arms, the dark background behind her head and the shaded modelling of the lower dress create a concentration of light on her torso and face, highlighting these but also giving the whole image great depth. The light in fact falls from above, not really through the window as the composition implies it should, and probably reflects the studio process. The setting itself also speaks of taste and wealth, which the Pierreponts certainly enjoyed from his good fortune in prize-money by the time Russell drew them. Despite his distinction as a pastellist, his quality can be variable, but this pair - and especially the present example- show him at the top of his form. Both are signed and dated, this one on the window sill: 'J. Russell R.A. pinx. / 1801'.

In 1804 Russell also did a double portrait of two of the Pierrepont children, which must have been Anne and William, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1805: this was last sold at Sotheby's, London, on 19 November 1987 (lot 53, illustrated) and is illustrated in the online version of Neil Jeffares 'Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800'. For further information see PAJ2899.

Both pictures are in their original frames and Russell's standard printed sheets on the proper care of pastels, which are easily damaged, were still stuck on the original frame backings until 2006, when these were removed for better preservation. Both this picture and its pair of the sitter's husband entered the Museum in 1946 from the possession of Mrs Janet Eyre, a great-great-grandaughter of the Pierreponts through their daughter Anne (Mrs Uniacke). That of Captain Pierrepont was purchased at that time: the present one was initially accepted on loan in deference to Mrs Eyre's wish that they stay together, and purchased in 1967 from her residual estate.