Lot Essay
This picture was one of a large collection of portraits by Lely in the collection of Lord Stamford at Dunham Massey and later in the collection of the Grey Family at Enville Hall, Staffordshire. Compositionally it is almost identical with a portrait by Lely of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, of circa 1673-4, which was also in the Stamford Grey collection, and which was lot 48 in a sale at Christie's on 15 June 1928, although in that picture the sitter is holding her hair, rather than a handkerchief as in the present work, in her left hand (The John Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; see Painted Ladies, catalogue to the exhibition at The Paul Mellon Center for British Art, New Haven, and The National Portrait Gallery, London, 2001, no. 49).