Lady Mary Ashley-Cooper Country Life Magazine Portrait October 6 1928

Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper Country Life Magazine Portrait, Frontispiece, October 6 1928. LXIV No. 1655

The featured frontispiece this week is a portrait of Lady Mary Ashley-Cooper, eldest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Shaftesbury, whose engagement has recently been announced.

• Identity: Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper (1902–1936), daughter of the 9th Earl of Shaftesbury.
• Engagement: She became engaged to Napier Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington.
• Marriage: The couple married on November 27, 1928, at St Margaret’s, Westminster.
• Social Status: She was a prominent member of the “Bright Young Things,” a group of fashionable young aristocrats in 1920s London.
• Child: They had one daughter:
  • Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Sturt (born September 12, 1929)
• Legacy: Mary Anna later became known for her role in the Crichel Down Affair, a landmark case in British property rights.

This is an authentic original page from Country Life magazine, part of the iconic series often affectionately referred to as the “Girls in Pearls” portraits — elegant society images that captured a distinctive era of British publishing and portraiture.

Size: Approximately 13.75 x 9 inches (35 x 23 cm)

Condition: Very good for its age. As with all vintage magazine pages, light signs of handling or minor age-related blemishes may be present. Please review the large photo carefully for full condition details.

This original Country Life Magazine frontispiece portrait forms part of The Old Map Shop’s curated archive of society portraits published between 1897 and 2026.