Gilbert Soest (c. 1600-1681 London)

Portrait of Colonel William Strode (1589?-1666), of Barrington, near Ilminster, three-quarter-length, in a black mantle with a white shirt and neck tie, holding a scroll, seated in a green velvet chair, at a green draped table

Details

Gilbert Soest (c. 1600-1681 London)
Portrait of Colonel William Strode (1589?-1666), of Barrington, near Ilminster, three-quarter-length, in a black mantle with a white shirt and neck tie, holding a scroll, seated in a green velvet chair, at a green draped table
with identifying inscription 'Col^l, William Strode 1635' and coat-of-arms (upper right)
oil on canvas
42¾ x 35 5/8 in. (108.5 x 90.5 cm.)

Provenance

by inheritance to Mr. E.C. Strode (according to a label on the reverse).
with Thomas Agnew & Sons, London.
Acquired from Leggatt Brothers, London, in 1913, by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray.

Literature

Cowdray Park Catalogue, London, 1919, p. 5, no. 16, as 'William Dobson' (in the Buck Hall).
C. Anson, A Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings in the Collection of The Viscount Cowdray, London, 1971, p. 29, no. 88, plate 25, as 'William Dobson' (in the North Gallery).

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Lot Essay

Colonel William Strode was the youngest son of William Strode of Shepton Mallet and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Geoffrey Upton of Warminster. In 1642 he was made Parliamentary Deputy Lieutenant of Somerset. He became a Colonel in the Parliamentary army and was a member of the Long Parliament expelled at Pride's purge in December 1648. He is sometimes confused with the politician William Strode (1594-1645).

In his Anecdotes of the Lives of the Painters (ed. R.H. Wornum, 1888, II, p. 127) Horace Walpole commented of Soest that 'his draperies were often of satin, in which he imitated the manner of Terburgh, a Dutch painter of conversations, but enlarged his ideas, on seeing Vandyck ..'. Stylistically this portrait can be compared to Soest's portrait of Sir Thomas Tipping of circa 1660 (Tate Britain).

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