Portrait of Charles, Viscount Ascott (1652-before 1673), half length, as a boy - a sketch

The sitter was the eldest son of Charles Dormer, 2^nd Earl of Carnarvon and his wife, Elizabeth, née the Hon. Elizabeth Capel. This sketch relates to a group portrait of The Carnarvon Family (sold Christie’s, London, 6 December 2011, lot 7, £361,250) that Lely painted in the later 1650s, when he was established as the pre-eminent portrait painter in England. Given the technique, it is likely that it was a preparatory sketch made in advance of the finished painting, although later retouchings to the facial features limits a full assessment of the original surface. In addition to the group portrait of his family, Lord Carnarvon commissioned two single portraits of himself and one of his two eldest children.

The Dormers were a part of one of the most prominent groups of Royalists in the first half of the seventeenth century: Lord Carnarvon's father, Robert, 1st Earl (c. 1610-1643) had been a noted officer and general in the Civil War, killed at the Battle of Newbury. He had also been the ward and then son-in-law of Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery and subsequently also Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain of King Charles I's household; his sister, Elizabeth (d. 1632), had been married to yet another prominent Royalist, Edward, Lord Herbert, subsequently Marquess of Worcester (d. 1667). Charles Dormer was Lord Carnarvon's only son, and had himself married a daughter of Arthur, 1st Baron Capel of Hadham (1604-1649), the parliamentarian and latterly Royalist officer who had been beheaded by order of Parliament.