Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington (1618-1685) in Garter Robes
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1670 - 1699
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2248 x 1346 mm (88½ x 53 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 108929
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington (1618-1685), in Garter Robes, Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680) and Studio, inscribed, in yellow [Wharton] script, below left: Henry Bennett Earle of - - -/Arlington / Principall Secretary [which he ceased to be in that year]; and below right: … 1674 p. [Lilly]. A full-length portrait in full Garter Robes, standing in an apartment with curtain background. Arlington was one of Charles II's inner circle of ministers in the 1670's, the initials of whose titles coincidentally formed the word ‘cabal’. He died without a male heir; Arlington Street was subsequently built over the site of his grand London house; Euston Hall, Suffolk, passed via his only daughter to the Dukes of Grafton, and was largely rebuilt. Bought in the Stanhope Sale 1733, and before that in the Wharton collection.
Provenance
Philip Wharton, 4th Lord Wharton (1613-1696), Winchendon; thence by descent to Philip, Duke of Wharton (1698 - 1731); by whom – or by whose executors – either sold (in the latter case, with the rest of his collection) to Sir Robert Walpole, or to directly Sir William Stanhope, whose seat, Eythrope, was next door to Wooburn (the Whartons’ other seat); acquired at Sir William Stanhope’s sale, Albermarle Street, April, 1733, lot 30 by Nathaniel Curzon, 4th Bt (1676 - 1758), possibly at Curzon's house in Brook St; recorded in Principal Dressing Room in 1769; bought with part of the contents of Kedleston with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1987 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000)
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to the National Trust in 1987)
Marks and inscriptions
P M (?) Lilly (signature, painted, bottom rhs of canvas, gold text)
Makers and roles
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), publisher
References
Millar 1994 Sir Oliver Millar, “Philip, Lord Wharton, and his collection of portraits”, Burlington Magazine, no.1097, August, 1994, pp.517-530, no.26