Attributed to Willem Wissing

Elizabeth countess of Essex was the daughter of Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland and his wife Anne, daughter of William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury.  On 19th May 1653 she married Arthur Lord Capell at Petworth.  In 1661 her husband was created Earl of Essex.  He was implicated in the Rye House Plot in 1683 and was imprisoned in the Tower of London where he killed himself.  She is painted here when a window with her eldest son Algernon, 2nd Earl of Essex and her daughter Anne who married Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle in 1683.  The present work is a version of the portrait at Syon House.