Portrait of Anne, Lady Russell, later Countess Bedford (1615-1684), bust-length

Lady Anne Carr was the only child and heir of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, the disgraced favorite of James I, and the infamous Frances Howard, the divorced wife of the 3rd Earl of Essex. She was born in the Tower of London during her parents’ imprisonment on charges of murder for their participation in the fatal poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. Later at court, and by then a celebrated beauty, Lady Anne caught the eye of William Russell, 5th Earl and later 1st Duke of Bedford. His father, Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, remembering her parents’ scandal, was staunchly opposed to the marriage but his opposition only served to increase the couple’s passionate attachment. following the intercession of King Charles I, they were married in 1637.

Sir Anthony van Dyck painted Lord and Lady Russell on a number of occasions. The double portrait belonging to the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton House, Wiltshire, is believed to date from the year of their marriage in 1637, as is the full-length portrait of the Countess, which is still in the collection of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey. The three-quarter-length portrait at Petworth is close in date to the Woburn Abbey portrait, and the half-length portrait, of which the present painting is a studio version, formerly in the collection of the Earls Spencer and most recently in a private collection in Japan, is believed to date from approximately the same time. The latest of the known portraits of the Countess by van Dyck shows her three-quarter-length and was originally owned by the sitter’s daughter, Margaret (d. 1702).