Follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck 1599-1641

British Institution, 1820, no.45 (as Van Dyck);
British Institution, 1864, no.31 (as Van Dyck);
Grosvenor Gallery, Van Dyck Exhibition, 1886-87 (lent by Sir Philp Egerton);
Leeds City Art Gallery, 1889, Works by the Old Masters (as Van Dyck)

The sitter was the son of William Wentworth, of Wentworth Woodhouse, and his wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Atkinson of Stowell in Gloucestershire.  In 1628 he was created Viscount Wentworth, and in the same year King Charles appointed him as President of the North.  A few years later he was appointed as Lord Deputy of Ireland, and in 1639/40 he was created 1st Earl of Strafford.  He was one of the King's stongest supporters, but had a number of enemies who in 1640 managed to bring a successful Bill of Attainder which led to his eventual execution on 12th May 1641.  Clarendon remarked that Strafford was 'The greatest subject in power, and little inferior to any in fortune, that was at that time in either of the three kingdoms...Of all his passions his pride was most predominant' (Clarendon, 1888, Bk.III, 204-5). 

In the 1864 catalogue of pictures at Oulton Park some lines are quoted with reference to the portrait's exhibition at the British Institution in 1864, "The palm of interest in portraiture this year must be awarded to Vandyck's stately Strafford, not the famous Fitzwilliam portrait of him, with his Secretary, but a hardly inferior half-length, in full armour, belonging to Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton.  This is indeed the complete presentment of a powerful individuality, done without affectation or effort, yet with consumate conscientiousness, as if the courtly and pleasure-loving painter had been for the whole both sobered and dignified by the character of his sitter".

The present work derives from the portrait of Strafford by Van Dyck which hangs at Petworth House.