Miss Lawson, Mrs (later Lady) Chicheley
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1640 - 1680
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1238 x 984 mm (48 3/4 x 38 3/4 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 207821
Caption
The picture has hitherto been regarded as a companion to another portrait at Wimpole, said to represent Sir Thomas Chicheley, and she has therefore been assumed to be his wife. As it is not a companion, and as Sir Thomas Chicheley's identity is doubtful, it is unlikely that this represents this Lady Chicheley at all (they are not even framed alike). If there is any foundation to the tradition that she is Lady Chicheley, she is more likely to have been the wife of Sir Thomas’s son, Rear-Admiral Sir John Chicheley: ‘Mrs Norton’. What may be a genuine likeness of Lady Savile – as she continued to be known even after her second marriage – was amongst the Legh family portraits at Lyme Park, and shows a much older woman, painted around 1660.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Miss Lawson, Mrs (later Lady) Chicheley by Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680). Most probably the daughter of one of Lely's 'Flaggmen', Sir John Lawson. Her second husband was John Chicheley, son of Sir Thomas, with whose wife the sitter was previously identified.
Provenance
Bequeathed by Elsie Kipling, Mrs George Bambridge (1896 - 1976), daughter of Rudyard Kipling, to the National Trust together with Wimpole Hall, all its contents and an estate of 3,000 acres
Credit line
Wimpole Hall, The Bambridge Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), artist