Maria, Lady Eardley is an oil on canvas by the English artist, Thomas Gainsborough, painted around the time of her marriage in 1766, according to British art historian, Ellis Waterhouse, in “Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough,” The Volume of the Walpole Society 33 (1948 –1950): 34.

In December, 1766 she married Sir Sampson Gideon, who became a member of Parliament soon after, and in 1789 was elevated to the Irish peerage to become Lord Eardley with a name from her father's maternal family.

She is facing us wearing an elegant blue and white wrapping dress.

Gainsborough was one of England's leading 18th century portrait and landscape painters.

This work is highly representative of Gainsborough's depictions of the British élite – they emerge in full figure from wooded landscapes.