Sir Peter Lely

Sir Peter Lely was a successful portraitist during the Commonwealth and Restoration periods, aligning himself with the crown and royalist families.  This portrait depicts Elizabeth Capell, Countess of Carnarvon, the first wife of Charles Dormer, 2^nd Earl of Carnarvon, whom she married in or before 1653.  Lely had a long association with both the Capell and Dormer families, painting numerous portraits of various members of the two families throughout the over twenty years he was a beneficiary of their patronage. 

In this work, Elizabeth sits with her head resting on her right hand, gazing dreamily to her right, while holding a small piece of greenery in her left hand.  This plant could refer to Elizabeth's status as an amateur artist of flowers and other botanical subjects, an interest that she shared with her sister Mary, Duchess of Beaufort.¹  In fact, a flower painting by Elizabeth is in the Royal Collection and was featured in the exhibition, "Escape to Eden:  Five Centuries of Women and Gardens" at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2000-2001.²  Clothed in a gown of pale gray satin and wearing large pearl drop earrings and a pearl necklace, Elizabeth is seated on a patio or balcony, a red velvet curtain draped behind her offsetting the pale color of her dress.  To the right, Lely provides a glimpse of trees and a cloud-studded sky where the curtain has fallen away.  The countess' pose was popularized by Lely in his portrait of the King's mistress, Barbara Villiers, and by the mid-1660s, many women were adopting this pose for their portraits. 

The long and fruitful association between Lely and his patrons testifies to the close link between politics and the arts during this period in English History.  Elizabeth Capell sat numerous times for Lely.  In addition to the painting at the Metropolitan Museum mentioned below (see footnote 1), this work is related to another portrait by Lely, the location of which is currently unknown, but was last recorded in the collection of Sir John Coote in 1980.³  A miniature by Richard Gibson, currently owned by the Yale Center for British Art, is a direct copy of this lost portrait of the Countess.⁴  Gibson, who was a student and close friend of Lely, was a dwarf who also enjoyed the patronage of the Capell and Dormer families.  In the miniature, as in this work, Elizabeth is depicted with her head resting on her right hand; but her costume has changed and her gaze is directed towards the viewer. 

We are grateful to Diana Dethloff and Catherine Macleod for endorsing the attribution to Sir Peter Lely based on photographs.

1.  A double portrait of Elizabeth and Mary at the Metropolitan Museum depicts Mary holding and pointing to a botanical sample, while Elizabeth displays a small painting of a tulip that bears her signature.  (Sir Peter Lely, Mary Capell, Later Duchess of Beaufort, and Her Sister Elizabeth, Countess of Carnarvon, oil on canvas, 51 1/4  by 67 in., Bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939 [39.65.3]).
2.  This exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue, see Susan Bennett, Five Centuries of Women and Gardens, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery, London 2000, currently out of print.
3.  According to a note in the files of the Yale Center for British Art.
4.  Richard Gibson, after Sir Peter Lely, Elizabeth Capel, Countess of Carnarvon, watercolor and bodycolor on vellum, 3 1/4  by 2 11/16  in., Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, 1974.2.44.