This is the only known Adam design for Lady Elizabeth (Betty) Macfarlane (ND). She was the daughter of Alexander Erskine, 5th Earl of Kellie (d.1756), and in 1760 had married the antiquarian Walter MacFarlane, 20th Chief of the Clan Macfarlane (d.1767).

Lady Betty's brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Erskine (1736-95) (later 7th Earl of Kellie) was a friend of James Boswell, and Boswell recorded having dined with lady Betty in London on Thursday 2 December 1762:
I went to Leicester Street, where Lady Betty had a house taken. I pitied Macfarlane, who is very narrow, and had now house and footmen and coach and dress and entertainment of all kinds to pay. Captain Erskine said that he was past pity, for that he only knew the value of money in trifles; and he also said that to the length of five guineas the Laird might retain some degree of rationality, but when the sum exceeded that, he became perfectly delirious. What an absurd thing was it for this old clumsy dotard to marry a strong young woman of quality. It was certainly vanity, for which he has paid very heavily. Her marrying him was just to support herself and her sisters; and yet to a woman of delicacy, poverty if better than sacrificing her person to a greasy, rotten, nauseous carcass and a narrow vulgar soul.

Lady Betty's husband Walter MacFarlane is known to have died on 5 June 1767 at his Edinburgh townhouse on Canongate. Presumably, it was for that house on Canongate that Adam made his mirror frame design for Lady Betty two years earlier. However, the mirror frame could have been intended for the London townhouse on Leicester Street mentioned by Boswell. It is not known if the mirror frame was ever executed.

Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 56; E. Harris, The furniture of Robert Adam, 1963, Index p. 59; The Journals of James Boswell: 1762-1795, 1991, pp. 20-21

Frances Sands, 2012
Updated by Frances Sands, 2025
With thanks to Charles May for identifying Lady Betty Macfarlane.