Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Harley, Marchioness of Carmarthen, three-quarter-length, in a red dress, seated, a landscape beyond

Details

Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723)
Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Harley, Marchioness of Carmarthen, three-quarter-length, in a red dress, seated, a landscape beyond
signed and dated 'G.Kneller Eques.ft/1711' (lower left) and with identifying inscription (lower left)
oil on canvas
49½ x 40¼in. (126 x 102cm.)

Provenance

By descent in the family of the sitter
The Trustees of the 10th Duke of Leeds Will Trust; Christie's, London, 23 November 1973, lot 68 (sold 1,500 gns.).

Literature

J. Douglas Stewart, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Oxford, 1983, p.97, no.134.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The sitter (d.1713), was the daughter of the politician Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661-1724), and his first wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Foley, of Witley Court, Worcesteshire. She married Peregrine Hyde, Marquis of Carmarthen, later 3rd Duke of Leeds, in 1712, by whom she had a son, Thomas, who succeeded as the 4th Duke of Leeds in 1731. A full-length portrait of the sitter's father, carrying his wand of office as Lord High Treasurer, by Kneller, signed and dated 1714, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (J. Douglas Stewart, op.cit., no. 557), and a three-quarter-length, by Kneller, of the sitter's brother Edward, later 2nd Earl of Oxford, of 1716, is at Christ Church, Oxford (J. Douglas Stewart, op.cit., no 557(A)).

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