Circle of Sir Peter Lely 1618-1680

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Description

Sir Peter Lely
Portrait of John Kyrle of Rosshire, the Man of Ross (1637-1724)
later inscribed u.l. with the identity of the sitter, and later inscribed on the reverse, transcribed from an inscription on the original canvas:Mr Iohn Kyrle of Rofse / Aetatis sua 35
oil on canvas

Half length, wearing brown robes

Provenance

Anne, Lady Wynford, Wynford Eagle, Dorset

Catalogue Note

The sitter was the eldest son of Walter Kyrle (d. 1660) of Ross, Herefordshire, barrister, JP, and MP for Leominster in 1640, and his wife, Alice Mallet (d. 1663), daughter and heir of John Mallet of Berkeley, Gloucestershire. During his lifetime Kyrle seems to have earned the title of the 'Man of Ross' or, according to Thomas Hearne, the 'Great Man of Ross'. He seems to have regularly acted on behalf of his neighbours in legal matters, and may have acted on behalf of Ross, Lord Weymouth, as the absentee lord of the manor.

Kyrle was famed as a philanthropist, and it was claimed that he had performed innumerable acts of kindness, ensuring decent funerals for the poor and providing medicines for the sick. It would seem that his reputation for this philanthropy is largely owed to Alexander Pope's posthumous eulogy of him in his third ‘Moral Epistle’, published in 1732.