At the age of nineteen she bestowed her hand upon the Hon. John Damer, the eldest son of Lord Milton, and the nephew of the Earl of Dorchester. This marriage proved a sad drawback to the improvement of our young artist. Damer--“heir in expectancy to thirty thousand a year--was at once eccentric and extravagant. Those were the days of silk, and lace, and embroidery, and he adorned his person with all that was costly, and loved to surprise his friends and vex his wife by appearing thrice a day in a new suit.” He furnished for Miss Burney, remarks Mrs. Lee, “in her celebrated novel of Cecilia, a character in real life--Harrington, the guardian of her heroine.” He became the prey of tailors and money-lenders in London; his extravagance daily increased, and he scattered a princely fortune in a few years. In nine years this unhappy union was terminated by the suicide of the husband, who shot himself with a pistol, in the Bedford Arms, Covent Garden, in August, 1776. His wardrobe, which was sold at auction, is said to have brought fifteen thousand pounds--perhaps half its cost. The widow, left childless, availed herself of her recovered freedom to take journeys with the object of gaining new ideas in the art she loved. She traveled through France, Spain, and Italy, renewing her studies in sculpture. At this time it was the fashion for ladies to take a warm interest in politics. Mrs. Damer became an ardent partisan of the Whig cause, and active in helping to carry elections. Mrs. Lee observes: “Gentlemen have no objection to ladies being politicians if they take the right side: to wit, that to which they themselves belong; and Mrs. Damer conscientiously adopted the opinions of the Whig party. At that time Great Britain was waging war with her American colonies. She took the part of the rebellious subjects, warmly espoused our cause, and bravely advanced her opinions.” She was a warm friend of Fox. Walpole thus speaks of his cousin’s works, which soon acquired her fame as a sculptor: “Mrs. Damer’s busts from the life are not inferior to the antique. Her shock dog, large as life, and only not alive, has a looseness and softness in the curls that seemed impossible to terra-cotta; it rivals the marble one of Bernini in the royal collection. As the ancients have left us but five animals of equal merit with their human figures--viz., the Barberini goat, the Tuscan boar, the Mattei eagle, the eagle at Strawberry Hill, and Mr. Jenning’s dog--the talent of Mrs. Damer must appear in the most distinguished light.” Cerrachi gave a whole figure of Anne as the Mùse of Sculpture, preserving the graceful lightness of her form and air. The poet Darwin says: “Long with soft touch shall Damer’s chisel charm; With grace delight us, and with beauty warm.”