Circle of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger Fl.1561-1635

Painted for Anne, Lady Wentworth (d. 1625) and her husband Sir William Pope (1575-1631), 1^st Earl of Downe;
Probably by direct descent to her son Thomas (one of the sitters), 4^th Baron Wentworth and Earl of Cleveland (1591 – 1667);
Probably by descent to his grand-daughter Henrietta Maria, Baroness Wentworth (d. 1686);
Probably by inheritance to her aunt, Anne, Baroness Wentworth and Dowager Baroness Lovelace of Hurley (d. 1697);
Probably by descent to her grand-daughter Martha, Baroness Wentworth;
Probably by descent to her step-daughter Anne Johnson, who married Thomas Wentworth, 1^st Earl of Strafford, Baron Raby;
Probably by direct descent to his son William Wentworth, 2^nd Earl of Strafford;
Probably by inheritance to Frederick Thomas Wentworth, 3^rd Earl of Strafford;
Probably by descent to his sister Augusta Wentworth;
Probably by inheritance to Frederick W.T. Vernon-Wentworth, during whose lifetime (in 1829) recorded at Wentworth Castle, as ‘Zucchero’;
By direct descent to his son Thomas F.C. Vernon-Wentworth, Wentworth Castle;
By direct descent to his son Captain Bruce Canning Vernon-Wentworth, Wentworth Castle, by whom sold in 1919;
Whence acquired by Francis Howard Esq., by whom sold, Christie’s, 25th November 1955, lot 80, for £120 to Brigadier R.O. Spence, by whom loaned to Birmingham Art Gallery in 1957

D. Piper, Gheeraerts in the Huguenot Society Proceedings, Vol. XX, 1960, p. 218;
R. Strong, The English Icon: Elizabethan & Jacobean Portraiture, 1969, p. 291, under cat. no. 289

The family depicted is that of Anne, Lady Wentworth, daughter of Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower. In 1591 she married Sir Henry Wentworth, 3^rd Baron Wentworth, son of Sir Thomas Wentworth (1525-1584) by his second wife Mary Wentworth, and grandson of Sir Thomas Wentworth (1501-1555), 1^st Baron Wentworth. Sir Henry died of the plague at Eton in August 1593, and his death is alluded to by the mourning ring worn on Lady Wentworth’s left hand in the present portrait. Two years after his death, Lady Wentworth married Sir William Pope (1575-1631), first Earl of Downe, of Wroxton Abbey near Banbury, by whom she had two further sons, William (who she is pregnant with in the present portrait), born in 1596, and Thomas, born in 1598.

Lady Wentworth is depicted with the three surviving children from her first marriage to Sir Henry Wentworth. On the left is their eldest son Thomas (1591-1667), whose portrait traditionally attributed to Isaac Oliver but more recently given by Roy Strong to William Larkin, was formerly at Wroxton Abbey (see R. Strong, William Larkin, Icons of Splendour, 1995, p. 73, no. 10). Born in 1591 Thomas is depicted at the age of 5. In 1605 he was created a Knight of the Bath by James I, and at the Coronation of Charles I in 1626 was created Earl of Cleveland.

In the centre is their second son Henry, born in 1594, who is shown seated in an infant’s chair, holding a bow and arrow. He later became a Major-General in the army of Charles I and commanded the 2^nd Tertia of four regiments before Bristol, the defences of which he was the first to breach. He died in battle in 1644. To his left is his elder sister Jane, born in 1592, who is depicted in a dress cut from the same cloth as her mother’s (white shot with silver thread), made up as a French farthingale. In 1618 she married Sir John Finet, who was knighted in 1615/16 and became Master of Ceremonies to James I and Charles I.