Elizabeth’s father was a printer in Oxford, and so she came from a very different social background to Egremont. At Petworth, she was a devoted mother to her children, while developing intellectual interests in both science and fine art. She established both a museum and a laboratory in the house, won a silver medal from the Royal Society of Arts for her invention of a cross-bar lever (for moving large stones) and is known to have painted. Sadly, no surviving examples of her work are identifiable.
Her patronage of Blake, on the other hand, is clearly recorded by the artist. The first work she commissioned, Satan calling up his Legions, he described as being painted 'for a Lady of high rank'; the second, A Vision of The Last Judgment, he noted was 'done explicitly for the Countess of Egremont’.
At least one, and possibly both, of these paintings post-date Elizabeth’s departure from Petworth in 1803. By then, not enjoying the best of health and recovering from the infant death of their ninth – and only legitimate – child, Elizabeth simply could not cope with her husband’s unrelenting womanising. She spent the rest of her life formally separated, but not divorced, from Egremont.
Satan calling up his Legions
Elizabeth's first commission from Blake, Satan calling up his Legions, illustrates the opening book of Milton's Paradise Lost. Satan is shown against a gold leaf background, rallying the rebel angels who have been cast out by God and sent to hell.