Little Girl by the sea

Although I started this weekly art feature as a series of paintings of women either reading or writing, sometimes I find something I like so much that I just want to show it to you anyway. And here is just such a one -- painted in 1800 by the successful British portraitist  John Hoppner (1758-1810), this is a portrait of Anne Isabella Milbanke. But it does in fact have a literary connection -- because this lovely child, usually referred to as Annabella Milbanke, grew up to become the wife of Byron and the mother of the brilliant scientist and mathematician Ada Lovelace, who is sometimes referred to as the first computer programmer. It's sad to reflect how spectacularly and publicly unhappy Annabella's marriage was to be, but nice to see her looking so sweet and innocent before all that happened.