Important British Paintings (1500-1850)

/

Lot 14
  • 14

Manner of Robert Peake the Elder c.1551-1619

bidding is closed

Description

  • Robert Peake the Elder
  • Portrait of Sir George Fermor (died 1612); and Mary his wife (died 1628)

  • a pair, his portrait extensively inscribed c.l.

  • both oil on panel

both full length, standing, he wearing a black costume, in an interior with a view of the old house at Easton Neston through a window beyond with family coats of arms; she wearing a black dress and white ruff, a dog at her feet.

Provenance

By descent at Easton Neston until 2005

Catalogue Note

This magnificent pair of portraits were painted to commemorate the ascendancy of the Fermor family. The sitter was the grandson of Richard Fermor, a grocer and merchant who made a large fortune trading with Flanders and Italy, and who obtained the estate of Easton Neston in 1535. He lived there in great style until his estates were forfeited in 1540. However, Henry VIII relented at the end of his life, and the Fermors once again occupied Easton Neston. By the early seventeeth century, the rehabilitation of the family was finally complete, a fact emphasised by their entertainment of the new King James I on his way to claim his throne.

George Fermor was the eldest son of Sir John Fermor and his wife Maud, daughter of Nicholas 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden. His father served as M.P. for Nottinghamshire and also as Sherrif , and married the daughter of Nicholas Vaux, owner of the local estate af Harrowden and an influential supporter of Henry VII and of his son Henry VIII, who made him Baron Vaux on 27th April 1523.

George Fermor inherited Easton Neston from his father in 1571.  In September 1585, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester set off to the Low Countries with a substantial army to fight the Spaniards.  Fermor was part of this expedition and was knighted by him in 1586.  On 27th June 1603 Fermor and his wife entertained James I and Anne of Denmark on their way south from Scotland to assume the Crown of England.  There was an enormous gathering and it was reported that the countryside could "scarse lodge the infinit companie of lords and ladies and other people".  Ben Jonson composed a special poetical entertainment for the occasions.  The new King knighted a number of those gathered at Easton Neston, including Sir George's son Hatton (see lot 165).  Sir George's wife, Mary, was the daughter of Thomas Curson of Addington in Buckinghamshire.  They married in January 1572, and she survived her husband by six years, dying in 1628.  They had seven sons and eight daughters.