Lady Marsham (née Elizabeth Hammond, 1612-1689), in low-cut white dress with white underslip, jewelled drop-pearl pendant at corsage, pearl necklace and drop-pearl earrings, her fair hair dressed in ringlets; sky and cloud background

Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Hammond, Kt. of St. Alban's Court, Kent, married Sir John Marsham, 1st Bt., on 16 January 1631. Sir John (1602-1685) was one of the six clerks of the Court of Chancery during the reign of Charles I (in whose cause he suffered severely), and served again after the Restoration. He was a distinguished writer and published several historical works. He was knighted in 1660 and created a Baronet in 1663. Their grandson Robert was raised to the Peerage in 1716 by the title of 1st Baron Romney.
This expressive miniature, painted in the 1650s, may be compared to Cooper's portrait of the Duchess of Bolton (illustrated in D. Foskett's exhibition catalogue Samuel Cooper and his contemporaries, London, National Portrait Gallery, 1974, no. 59) and to his portrait of an unknown lady in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (op. cit., no. 89).