Mary Beale (Suffolk 1632-1697 London)

Portrait of Lady Kingsmill (d.1682), half-length, in a red coat and black headdress, in a sculpted cartouche

Details

Mary Beale (Suffolk 1632-1697 London)
Portrait of Lady Kingsmill (d.1682), half-length, in a red coat and black headdress, in a sculpted cartouche
signed 'Mary Beale' (lower right, on the cartouche)
oil on canvas
30½ x 25½ in. (77.5 x 64.7 cm.)

Provenance

Great Shelford.
By descent in the family of the sitter to the present owner.

Literature

C.H. Collins Baker, Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters, London 1912, vol. II, p. 36 and p. 39, illustrated facing p. 38, as 'Dorothea Kingsmill'.

Exhibited

London, Geffrye Museum, 13 October-21 December 1975, and Eastbourne, Towner Art Gallery, 10 January-21 February 1976, The Excellent Mrs. Mary Beale, p. 29, no. 17, illustrated.

Lot Essay

The present lot depicts Anne, the daughter of Sir George Wroughton, who married Sir Richard Kingsmill of Malshanger. The sitter has traditionally been identified as her elder daughter Dorothea, who married John Fanshawe of Parslowes, but as she died before 1659 this cannot be the case. The picture can probably be identified with the portrait commenced on 11 May 1677 ('Lady Kingsmill d.c.') with further sittings on 14 and 22 May ('Lady Kingsmills face fin: 3d').

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