But youth and beauty and the immortality conferred by Sir Joshua were not exclusive privileges of the nobility. To Lord Mount Edgcumbe and Captain Keppel, Reynolds owed the beginning of his patronage in Court circles, but to the latter he was also indebted for the acquaintance of one of his fairest sitters, Kitty Fisher, the daughter of a German staymaker, who was the most celebrated Traviata of her time. For her biography the reader may refer to Mr. Horace Bleackley’s “Ladies Fair and Frail.” She first sat to Reynolds in April 1759, the portrait being commissioned by Sir Charles Bingham, who was afterwards created Lord Lucan. At that time she was barely twenty years old, and was under the protection of Captain Keppel. Old Lord Ligonier was also one of her many admirers, and is said to have conspired with the King in playing off a joke at the expense of Pitt (Lord Chatham) by introducing Kitty to him at a review in Hyde Park as a foreign Duchess. The King fell in with the idea, and, looking towards Kitty, asked aloud who she was. “Oh, Sir,” said the old General, “the Duchess of N---, a foreign lady that the Secretary should know.” “Well, well,” said the King, “introduce him.” Lord Ligonier took Pitt up to her and said, “This is Mr. Secretary Pitt--this is Miss Kitty Fisher.” Pitt behaved very well, and without showing the least embarrassment, told her he was sorry he had not known her when he was younger. “For then, Madame,” he concluded, “I should have had the hope of succeeding in your affections; but old and infirm as you now see me I have no other way of avoiding the force of such beauty but by flying from it,” and then hobbled off. Leslie mentions having seen as many as five portraits of Kitty, which must all have been painted about the same time. In one, a three-quarter length, she holds a dove in her lap. Of this there are three versions, one of which belongs to Earl Crewe, and another to Mr. Lenox of New York (1865). Another portrait of Kitty is in the possession of Lord Leconfield, at Petworth, Sussex. In this she is leaning with folded arms on a table, facing the painter. This, and a fifth, as Cleopatra dissolving a pearl, are better known by having been mezzotinted. Tom Taylor mentions two more, one belonging to Lord Lansdowne, in profile with a parrot on her forefinger, and another, which he considers the loveliest of all, belonging to Lord Carysfort--an unfinished head in powder and a fly-cap. Within a couple of years (1761) Reynolds was painting Kitty’s rival, the fascinating Nelly O’Brien, with apparently as much relish and assiduity and even more success. In 1763 he painted the exquisite picture of her which is here reproduced from the original at Hertford House.