1709-1764Sarah Stanley

Sarah Stanley (née Sloane) was the eldest daughter of Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection of some 70,000 books, manuscripts, coins and plants would later form the basis of the British Museum and National History Museum. As a teenager, Sarah copied miniatures in her father’s collection by Rosalba Carreira and Nicholas Hilliard. She is likely to have received lessons from the eminent miniaturist Bernard Lens III. Sir Hans Sloane found his fortune in travelling and marrying the heiress to a Jamaican plantation. In his will he bequeathed his collection to the nation in return for a £20,000 sum to his heirs, the equivalent of about £4 million today.