Studio of Gerrit van Honthorst

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674), at Clarendon House, London;
by descent to his son, Henry Hyde, 2^nd Earl of Clarendon (1638-1709), at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire;
by descent, at Cornbury, and later The Grove, Hertfordshire, to his nephew, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Rochester and later 4th Earl of Clarendon (1672-1753);
transferred to his son, Henry Hyde, 5^th Baron Hyde and Viscount Cornbury (1710-1753), in 1749, who died without issue;
by descent to his niece, Charlotte (d.1790), eldest daughter of William Capel, 3rd Earl of Essex (1697-1743), who married Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1709-1786), of the second creation;
thence by descent to the present owner

Plymouth City Art Gallery, Painting in the Clarendon Collection, 1954, no. 16, pp. 17-18;
Plymouth, City Museum & Art Gallery on long term loan until 2010

Clarendon State Papers, Bodleian MS Clarendon 92, ff 253-254, no. 46, listed among a group of pictures mended and repaired in about 1683-5, as hanging at Cornbury Park;
Lady T. Lewis, Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, London 1852, Vol. III, pp. 256 & 340-342, no. 43;
G. F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854, p. 455;
D. Piper, Catalogue of Seventeenth-Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, Cambridge 1963, pp. 118-119;
R. Gibson, Catalogue of Portraits in the Collection of the Earl of Clarendon, Wallop 1977, no. 58, pp. 53-54;
W.J. Hoogsteder, De Schilderijen van Frederik en Elizabeth, Konig en Konigin van Bohemen, University of Utrecht, Netherlands, London & Utrecht, 1986, Vol, I., p. 115, no. 37:3;
J.R. Judson, Gerrit Van Honthorst 1592-1656, Ghent 1999, p. 262, no. 336 version (2)

The following condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. The original canvas appears in good condition. The overall tension is slightly slack causing planar deformations across the surface and in the lower left corner. The keys are all present and tied in place. The canvas has been lined and the adhesion between the original and the lining canvas appears good. There appears to be a seam running horizontally along the centre of the painting. There are isolated small planar deformations approximately 13cm from the upper edge and 54cm from the left, located above the sitter's head. There are similar small distortions along the lower edge. There is a repaired damage in the lower right corner which does appear slightly raised. The paint layers appear to be in very good condition. There is no evidence of raised or flaking paint and the adhesion between the paint and the ground layers and the support appears good. There are scattered areas of over-paint throughout the painting, such as in the costume, most noticeably in the lower left of her gown; these are larger than would appear necessary. The re-paint outline various compositional points rather than refer to losses, such as the edges of the hands and the darker areas of the gown which have been emphasised. The over-paint present in the sitter's face and chest do appear more extensive than the damages would appear. The sitter's nose has been reworked and straightened. There is a varnish layer present that fluoresces evenly under ultra violet light.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This imposing image is a version of the state portrait of the Queen painted by Honthorst in 1631 which belonged to her loyal friend Lord Craven. Honthorst also painted a full length portrait of her husband Frederick, and both portraits were sold by Sotheby's in the Craven sale in 1968. They were both acquired by the Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg. Elizabeth's portrait shows her a year before the tragic death of her husband, a forceful and determined figure resolved to devote her life to supporting her exiled husband and restore him to his Kingdom.

Elizabeth was the only surviving daughter of James I and his wife Anne of Denmark (a portrait of whom is offered earlier in this sale). When a child she was largely brought up by John Lord Harrington of Exton, and it was from him and from her elder brother Prince Henry, whom she idolised, that she acquired her strong belief in the virtues of the Protestant religion, which remained with her all her life. She was a striking beauty when young, and had many suitors for her hand. Her chosen husband was the Elector Frederick V whom she married in the chapel of Whitehall Palace in 1613. The marriage was a good match for Frederick and gave the Palatinate a more important position amongst the German states. In England it was seen as a Protestant alliance and was celebrated with plays, poems and a masque entitled Masque of Truth. Frederick and his wife travelled back to Heidelberg, where despite her charm and beauty, Elizabeth was not widely popular. However her arrival brought new artists to the city, including Salomon de Caus who created a celebrated garden, the Hortus Palatinus. The turning point in their life took place in August 1619 when the Bohemian estates deposed the Archduke Ferdinand and offered Frederick the crown of Bohemia. Despite her father's fears, Elizabeth encouraged her husband to accept, and he was crowned in November in Prague. However his reign was to be short-lived as by October the Catholic forces were close to the city and in November Frederick's troops were routed at the battle of the White Mountain. The couple fled to the Netherlands, and set up home in The Hague, where at first they lived with all the trappings of a royal court with frequent dances and hunting expeditions. It was during these early years in exile that she was first painted by Dutch painters such as Miereveldt and Honthorst.

Elizabeth's strengths became evident in the difficult years away from her husband's kingdom. She was widely admired for her courage and strength of character, and she never gave up in her attempts to rally sympathetic parties to her cause. Her attempts were fraught with difficulties - her champion Christian of Brunswick was defeated by the Imperial forces, Gustavus Adolphus, who seemed to be the new Protestant hope, was killed in battle in 1632, and shortly afterwards her beloved husband died. However Elizabeth never gave up hope and, refusing her brother's offer of a house in England, resolved to stay in the Netherlands with her large family of ten children (two sons and a daughter had died young), living mainly at a country house at Rhenen in Gelderland. When the Civil War broke out, her sons Rupert and Maurice resolved to fight for their uncle, whilst Charles Louis preferred to placate Cromwell. In1648 the treaty of Westphalia led to the restoration of the Palatinate dynasty, but Elizabeth was thwarted in her plans to return by a disagreement with her son Charles Louis.

Elizabeth's last years remained difficult. Her son Edward converted to Catholicism which offended such a staunch Protestant, and two of her daughters retired to convents where they became abbesses. In 1661 she moved to London where she had the support of her loyal friend Lord Craven. She moved to Leicester House where she died in the presence of her favourite son, Rupert.

In view of Clarendon's devotion to Charles I (Elizabeth's brother), a portrait of this sitter for the gallery would have been an obvious choice, to be hung alongside the portraits of her father and mother and of her brother Charles I.