Description: Note that the image is also the wrong way round! The writing is reversed.
The picture shows the resting place of Penelope Boothby in Ashbourne church. The girl was the only daughter of Sir Brooke Boothby (see his portrait by Joseph Wright of Derby at the Tate Britain). Sir Brooke Boothby is associated with the Lunar Society, and Erasmus Darwin was his friend and Penelope's physician. The girl died in 1791 at the age of 5. The monument was commissioned by Sir Brooke.
The sculptor was Thomas Banks and this work inspired many similar monuments around the country. His work is now recognized as the finest carving of a sleeping child in the world. The inscriptions around the tomb are in French,Italian, Latin and English because she could speak all four languages by the age of five.The epitaph reads 'She was in form and intellect most exquisite; The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail bark and the wreck was total'.
Additional information supplied by Olga Baird