English School, circa 1660

These portraits have remained in the family of the sitters since they were painted around 1660.  Jerome Rawstorn was from a prominent Lancashire family, and lived in Plaistow Essex; he is depicted in the first of the pictures flanked by four sons and a daughter.  To his right are his elder sons Samuel Rawstorn and William Rawstorn, and to his left are Jerome Rawstorn, John Rawstorn and Sarah Rawstorn.

Sir William, the eldest of Jerome’s children, came to London in the mid 17^th century and became an alderman and sheriff of the City of London.  He was married to Elizabeth Browne.  Samuel Rawstorn married Sarah Papillon, the 7^th child of Thomas Papillon who was director of the East India Company, Member of Parliament for Dover, and Whig activist.  Thomas was the grandson of the Captain of the Guard and Valet du Chambre to Henri IV of France, and son of David Papillon, a trusted courtier of Charles I.  Thomas clearly inherited his father’s royalist loyalties; he was later, like Charles II, temporarily forced into exile in Holland, and it was to his son in law Samuel Rawstorn that he mortgaged his estates in England, including Acrise Place in Kent. In 1702 Samuel Rawstorn purchased a manor house in Lexden and it was there that these family portraits have hung until inherited by the present owners. 

Jerome died around 1658 so the portraits were likely to have been painted shortly before, or to commemorate his death. The practice of including posthumous portraits was well established and Jerome’s more sombre attire sets him apart as being from a more austere, pre-restoration, Cromwellian age. 

The second portrait depicts Jerome’s wife Grace Lane, Eleanor Lane (probably Grace’s mother), and two young daughters Grace and Mary Rawstorn.  Whilst Sarah and Mary died unmarried, Grace married Hugh Strode of Parnham in Dorset.  The two girls are dressed in beautiful yellow and pale grey silk dresses, whilst their mother wears a dress of teal silk with her hair arranged in ringlets high on the sides of her head, a style popularised by the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, who married Charles II in 1662 following his restoration to the throne of England.