Studio of Sir Anthony van Dyck

Possibly James Howard, 3rd Earl of Suffolk (1606/7–1688), first cousin of Charles Howard, Viscount Andover, later 2nd Earl of Berkshire (1615–1679), who married Dorothy Savage in 1637. Suffolk married, in 1682 as his third wife, Ann Montagu (circa 1667–1720), daughter of Robert, 3rd Earl of Manchester (1634–1683); 
Possibly by inheritance, following Suffolk's death in 1688, to his wife Ann, who returned to live with her family at Kimbolton Castle;
Thence by descent in the collection of the Dukes of Manchester, at Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire, to Alexander Montagu, 10th Duke of Manchester (1902–1977);
By whom sold, Kimbolton Castle sale on the premises, Knight Frank & Rutley, 18 July 1949, lot 18 (as a portrait of the Countesses of Rutland and Southampton);
Miss Marjorie Pollard, OBE (1899–1982);
Anonymous sale, Oxford, Phillips, 8 October 1982, lot 243, to the present owner. 

O. Millar, et al., Van Dyck: a complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 436;
W. Liedtke and M. Safer, ‘Reversing the roles: Van Dyck’s portrait of Lady Elizabeth Thimbleby with her sister Dorothy Savage’ in The Burlington Magazine, February 2009, vol. CLI, no. 1271, p. 80.  

The canvas has recently been relined and is in fine condition. The paint surface is stable and well-preserved. The craquelure has been delicately filled in in both the figures' faces and in parts of their drapery. There is a circa 35 cm horizontal line of repair along the lower left edge. This lot is offered in a carved wooden gilt frame, in good condition.
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A version of the portrait in the National Gallery, London (NG6437), formerly in the Spencer Collection at Althorp, the composition is one of the artist’s most celebrated works. It depicts two of the six daughters of Thomas, 1st Viscount Savage (1586–1635) and his wife Elizabeth Darcy, suo jure Countess Rivers (1581–1650). There is some debate as to the identification of the sisters, as well as the date of the original painting. In his catalogue of Van Dyck’s English paintings the late Sir Oliver Millar suggested that the composition commemorated the marriage, on 10 April 1637, of Dorothy to Charles Howard, Viscount Andover, later 2nd Earl of Berkshire (1615–1679).¹ Millar also suggested that the sitters can be identified as being Dorothy seated in yellow, approached by a small angel bearing a basket of roses, whilst her sister Elizabeth stands behind. Most recently however Walter Liedtke and Michelle Safer, following the discovery of a studio version of the composition inscribed with the sitters' identities in a private collection in New York, and reappraising the iconography of the composition, have suggested that the identities are reversed, with Dorothy standing, whilst it is her younger sister Elizabeth who is the principal figure, seated in yellow, and approached not by an angel but a cupid.² Liedtke and Safer also suggest that the composition in fact celebrates Elizabeth Savage’s marriage to Sir John Thimbleby of Irnham (d.1662), on 29 September 1635, and it is now generally accepted that this identification is correct and that the painting can be dated circa 1635.   

1. See Millar, under Literature.

2. See W. Liedtke and M. Safer, ‘Reversing the roles: Van Dyck’s portrait of Lady Elizabeth Thimbleby with her sister Dorothy Savage’, in The Burlington Magazine, February 2009, vol. CLI, no. 1271, pp. 79–83.