Portrait of Ann, Lady Hales, three-quarter-length, seated, in an ochre dress with a blue wrap, holding a small garland of flowers in her left hand and a sprig of blossom in her right, beside a classical urn in a wooded landscape

Ann, Lady Hales was the youngest of the four daughters and co-heirs of Edward, 1st Baron Wotton (1548-1626), and his third wife Mary, daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton. Her father was one of Queen Elizabeth I's most trusted courtiers and also a prominent figure in the reign of King James I. She married Sir Edward Hales, Bt., of Tunstall, Kent, who was a zealous royalist. Lely also painted a group portrait of the Hales family, with their children (67x92 in.), which has been dated to circa 1656 (Corporation of London, Mansion House; see R.B. Beckett, Lely, London, 1951, p.47, pl.50).