English: Portrait of Mary Bartholomew, as a shepherdess, three-quarter-length, holding a crook and with a lamb at her side

The Dutch artist Pieter van Bleeck was primarily active in London, where he specialized in portraiture and print making. Drawn largely to London's theatrical personalities, he rendered portraits of Owen Swiny, Kitty Clive, and Peg Woffington, among other actors and actresses.

An inscription on the present canvas identifies the lady in the guise of a shepherdess as Mary Bartholomew: born in 1726, the only daughter of Philip Bartholomew of Oxon Hoath, West Peckham and of West Malling, both in Kent. On 20 September 1748, she married Admiral Francis Geary, Bt. (1709-1796), an officer of the Royal Navy who was active in several wars, including the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence. He was created a Baronet on August 17, 1782.

Mary and Admiral Geary had two sons and three daughters: Francis, William, Mary, Judith, and Elizabeth. The Baronetcy was inherited by their second son, Sir William Geary, for their eldest son, Sir Francis, was killed in 1776 in the Revolutionary War.