Anne (1780-1876) was the daughter of William Bermingham of Ross Hill, Galway. In 1802, she married Francis, 2nd Earl of Charlemont. Lady Granville described the Countess in Paris in 1814, shortly after this portrait was painted – ‘Lady Charlemont is here in great beauty, but not making much sensation as she has no coquetterie [flirtatiousness], not even désir de plaire [desire to please], which repels a Frenchman’.

This miniature is one of the series of paintings in the ‘Gallery of Beauties’ commissioned by George IV when Prince Regent. These were portraits of fashionable ladies, one list of whom is in the Royal Archives and another printed in the Ladies Monthly Museum XVI (January 1814). A contemporary account records that the prince was ‘forming a superb boudoir for their reception’. Opulent frames for the paintings were ordered from Rundell, Bridge and Rundell in 1814. The series may have been conceived as a nineteenth-century version of the ‘Windsor Beauties’ painted by Sir Peter Lely for Anne Hyde, Duchess of York in 1662-5, and Sir Godfey Kneller’s ‘Hampton Court Beauties’ painted for Queen Mary around 1691.

Anne Mee (1780/5-1851) was the daughter of the artist John Foldsone. She was educated in London and was a protégée and pupil of the portrait painter George Romney. Lady Courtown introduced her to Queen Charlotte, and Charlotte Papendiek, journalist and assistant keeper of the wardrobe to Queen Charlotte, described Anne Mee drawing the queen and princesses at Windsor in 1790. Mee visited frequently after that date. Her portraits are often characterised by large eyes, and by 1804 she was able to ask as much as 40 guineas for a miniature. 

The miniature is inscribed on the backing paper in ink: No 6./ Anne Countess / of / Charlemont / painted by Anne Mee / 1813.