A three-quarter length portrait of Catherine Kerr (née Dod or Dodd), 1656–1748. The sitter has pale brown hair piled on top of her head. She wears a brown dress ornamented with pearl fastenings on the upper arm and at the waist. Her right hand rests in her lap while her left hand is raised, clasping a red shawl to her breast. She is seated with her elbow resting on stone plinth. Behind her is the base of a broken column. The composition is typical of Dahl’s female portraiture. He often depicted his wealthy female subjects leaning on plinths in classical settings. The sitter was born in 1656 in Calverhall, Shropshire. A daughter of the wealthy landowner Robert Dod (sometimes spelled Dodd), she and her younger sister Mary (1660–1722) inherited the family estates following the death of their brother John in 1694.