Sarah, Countess of Essex

Sarah Capel-Coningsby, Countess of Essex was an English amateur artist. She specialised in making watercolour copies of old portraits of 16th century personages and other paintings, and her surviving copies in many instances are the only evidence of the now lost originals. Over a hundred of her portraits in watercolour and gouache on paper were published in the 1825 edition of Lucy Aikin's Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, first published in 1818 as a two-volume work and re-issued in several editions. The fact that she frequently added the subject's coat of arms and other heraldic devices to her copy portraits suggests that she was knowledgeable in the field of heraldry.

Origins

She was born at Saint Helena, the daughter of Henry William Bazett of St Helena by his wife Clarissa Penelope Pritchard.

Marriages

She married twice:

Firstly to Edward Stephenson.
Secondly, as his 1st wife, to George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex.