Sir Peter Lely 1618-1680

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Description

Sir Peter Lely
Portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Essex
oil on canvas, in a Kent style frame

three-quarter length, seated, wearing burgundy robes, holding a sphere

Provenance

By descent to the sitter's sister, Elizabeth, who married Charles Dormer, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon;
Lady Isabella Dormer, their daughter, who married Charles Coote, 2nd Earl of Mountrath;
By family descent at Ballyfin House, County Laois, until sold, Sotheby's, 13th July 1988, lot 25, where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited

R.B. Beckett, Lely, 1951, p.54, no.369, illustrated pl.60 (incorrectly identified as the Countess of Mountrath)

Catalogue Note

The sitter was the daughter of Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland and his wife, Anne, daughter of William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. On 19th May 1653 she married Arthur Capell, later 1st Earl of Essex. She bore him six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood; Algernon, who succeeded his father in 1663, and Anne who married Charles, 3rd Earl of Carlisle.